Telecommunications development plan

Telecommunications development plan

By Furqon I. Hanief

JAKARTA (JP): The world has been retaining its fever since Al
Gore, vice-president of the United States, declared the idea of
the Global Information Infrastructure (GII). The business society
and government officials were stunned to learn of the vigorous
possibilities of the coming era.

With the advent of GII it means that there will be a huge
hardware system which can deliver information to anywhere in the
world, regardless of borders. Therefore, distribution of
information could run very fast, and access of knowledge for each
individual will suddenly rise. This is one of the key factors in
figuring out the quality of mankind, where the quality of human
resources is based on access to technology and information.

The central goals of technology and information have long been
sought after in the developed countries, subsequently some
pessimistic opinions regarding this phenomenon will lessen the
bargaining position of the developing countries toward the owners
of technology and information. Additionally, the domination of
funds and technology possessed by the developed countries
diminishes the alternatives of the developing countries, such as
Indonesia, to enjoying the era of information, except merely
acting as the users of the global systems.

According to the above constellation, a question may emerge
whether the GII will cause the developing countries to become the
losers. The answer to this question depends on how each country
prepares itself to deal with the new current of technology and
information.

Based on this observation, several countries have stipulated
the idea of National Information Infrastructure. In Indonesia, a
recent meeting at the Ministry of Tourism, Post and
Telecommunications asserted the idea of National Information
Infrastructure, or INFONAS (Informasi Infrastruktur Nasional).
The purpose of this paper was to bring up some remarks on the
above idea.

Just like other commodities, the success of the
telecommunications business in the era of globalization is
computed by the competitive ability of this commodity. In the
field of telecommunications services, competitive ability is
suggested by the traffic performance, whereby the more optimal
traffic is used, the more competitive the system of
telecommunications service.

The most important factor in optimizing the traffic is the
size of the market. In other words, it is necessary to have a
large pool of consumers with diverse types of services. It
requires a high capacity telecom facility which is able to give
large access to the consumers. The objective of this effort
parallels the equalizing quest of telecom service for the
society.

The attempt to enlarge the market should be accompanied by
activities which encourage consumers to intensify their behavior
of using telecom facilities. It may start from imposing favorable
tariffs, especially lowering long distant call rates. Imposing
favorable long distance charges is important since it directly
influences the decreasing gap between central areas and
peripheries and the effort to connect the people throughout the
country. Furthermore, we should lead the telecom operators to
provide high accountability of service quality for the users.

Through expanding the telecom consumers, bigger national
markets are opened for industry and small/medium operators. By
sub-franchising cooperation between big operator/network
providers and small/medium operators of specific subscribers, it
broadens the opportunity for small and medium enterprises to
enter the profitable telecommunication service business.

Besides traffic as a hardware component, we also have to
comprehend the software aspects. In the past 50 years, we can see
how much Hollywood has dominated the entertainment business
throughout the world, including Indonesia. CNN and other Western
news stations greatly influence the agenda of the local
newspapers in developing countries. Ironically, we often find
newspapers from developing countries quoting some articles about
certain events happening in another developing countries from the
western news stations.

The existence of GII will strengthen the domination of the
software aspects from the developed countries toward the
developing countries. It again shows how the powerful flow of
information has put developing countries, like Indonesia, in the
position of information users. Furthermore, GII will in some ways
be controlled by information producers from developed countries.
Before it happens, we should take some steps to reduce the gap
between both parties.

We should take advantage of Indonesia's geographical position,
which is in the most dynamic area in the world. It means a lot of
parties are looking for accurate information on resources,
regulations and other business aspects which are relevant for
their prospect of investment and trade.

This facility will encourage the flow of capital, goods and
services from and to this region. Besides that, this facility can
be used for tourism and cultural promotion which will encourage
more tourists to visit Indonesia.

Most tourists choose a destination after they have sufficient
information about the offered tourism destinations. In short,
such information will be well worth marketing by the developed
countries, therefore, it is important for us now to build
reliable information and entertainment producers which are
capable of meeting the market demand from both domestic and
international users. And again, this line of business will be
suitable for small and medium business entities to join.

The success of NII (INFONAS) depends on three factors:
technology, financial support and skills. We all need access to
maximize national potential resources. We should not put
telecommunications and information activities solely as a
multiplying effect, but also as a key factor in providing
unlimited access of information to all levels of society. This is
very important for the process of democratization, in uniting the
people throughout the country as well as enlightening the nation.

The writer is executive director of the Indonesian
Telecommunications Society.