Connectivity changes world's largest island nation

Extraordinary growth

In spite of this, Indonesia has seen continued expansion of its mobile networks. At the end of 2000, there were about 3.7 million Indonesian mobile subscribers. Today, that figure has grown by at least thirty times, to more than 116 million. This extraordinary development is projected to continue, with an estimated 130 million subscribers in 2010.

The expanding mobile network is emerging as one of the country’s most important pieces of infrastructure. Due to Indonesia’s geographic layout and level of economic development, the cable grid is nowhere near as extensive as the new mobile phone networks. Many islands lack regular phone lines, let alone cable broadband, and mobile connectivity is filling the void at a breakneck pace.

New networks congested within a week

The mobile phone represents an opportunity, not just to get in touch while on the go, but to get in touch, period. This goes a long way to explain the exponential growth in rural areas where communication technology has never been available before.

One of Indonesia’s largest operators, Telkomsel, made a pioneering investment in the region known as Area IV, comprising the islands of Kalimantan, Maluku, Papua and Suawesi. Like most of Indonesia, the region’s geography is challenging. To bring coverage to this remote area, equipment and staff had to be brought in by helicopter.

The overall lack of traditional technology-enabled services in Area IV meant that mobile coverage was very eagerly anticipated. Within a week of the launch, networks were congested and had to be extended to accommodate demand. Telkomsel’s efforts in Area IV were rewarded with an average revenue per user of 10-11 US dollars, which is roughly twice the average ARPU in Indonesia. Though not affluent, people in this region make a decent living from working in local industries, and can afford to pay for communication services.

Increased economic development

Nokia Siemens Networks has been working alongside Telkomsel throughout the Area IV project, enabling the rapid expansion of the operator’s network. Thanks to a successful long-term collaboration, Telkomsel now covers about 65 percent of Indonesia’s rural areas.

The economic growth that follows in the footsteps of mobile communication is well known, and rural Indonesia is no exception. For example, the oil and mining communities of Papua and South Sulawesi respectively have seen higher levels of growth since mobile communication services were introduced.

First-time connectivity also has an impact that goes well beyond any bottom line. But mobile phones are also starting to play a pioneering role in several fields that have previously suffered due to insufficient infrastructure.

Connectivity saves lives

Healthcare is a prime case in point. In some regions of Indonesia, a system for collecting information on avian flu among birds via simple text messaging is already in place. A recent, successful Indonesian telemedicine project involved regular check-ups of patients in remote regions via mobile phones. This represents a degree of service that most people in developed countries take for granted. But in a developing country, a simple phone call can spell the difference between life and death.

This was certainly the case when Indonesian midwives were given mobile phones and a 24-hour number that they could call and ask a doctor or an obstetrician for medical advice when assisting women with complicated pregnancies or births. In a country that has one of Southeast Asia’s highest maternal mortality rates, and where more than four percent of babies die at birth, this was much-needed help that proved to be as efficient as it was simple.

Breaking the silence on sex

In mature mobile markets, all available media is starting to converge to the mobile format. In Indonesia, the convergent nature of mobile communications represents a sudden and unprecedented information revolution, giving access to a variety of previously unavailable knowledge.

For example, sex education is all but absent from Indonesian classrooms, since it’s a taboo subject. Instead, young people learn about sex primarily from watching pornographic films. Like adolescents everywhere, they have many questions about sex, but have nowhere to turn for answers.

Enter Dr. Love – a sex counselor from Singapore, backed by an Indonesian condom brand. Young people can send anonymous text messages to his hotline and get their questions answered on a web site by a panel of medical professionals. Says Dr. Love, a.k.a. Dr. Wei Siang Yu, “If doctors can support public health and use current multimedia technology, many social problems can be solved.”

Changing values

Connectivity is certain to increase productivity and improve a range of information-enabled services, including healthcare and education, as well as transform Indonesian cultural values in the process.

Perhaps it is the lack of infrastructure in other areas, along with the inherent difficulty of communicating in a large and spread-out region, that makes the country take to connectivity like fish to water. Human beings are hard-wired to get in touch with each other, and now, finally, Indonesians have the means.