Indonesia needs 21 bln USD to develop national broadband system in five years

An Indonesian senior official said on Thursday that the nation needs some 278 trillion rupiah (about 21 billion U.S. dollars) to develop nationwide broadband service within five years.

Director General of Postal Ware and Informatics Resources at the Communication and Information Ministry Budi Setiawan said that government has designed the blueprint of the development, called Indonesia Broadband Plan (RPI) 2014-2019. "Of 278 trillion rupiah required to finance the development, the central government would contribute 10 percent of it. The remaining amount would be contributed by private sector and regional governments,"Budi said.

He added that the mapping out of the blueprint indicates the government's seriousness in promoting the development of telecommunication sector in the country.

Budi hoped that the national broadband service would reach remote areas with 71 percent households across the country to have access to the internet by 2019. "At least 49 percent of those households were in urban areas, capable to access the internet at 20 Mbps (Mega Bytes per second). The remaining ones were in rural areas with internet access at least at 1 Mbps,"Budi said.

Among the areas prioritized to have broadband service were border zones, Budi said, adding that government planned to build new Base Transceiver Station (BTS) in border provinces.

Despite its large number of internet users, Indonesia's internet speed was among the slowest in the region with an average of 4.1 Mbps last year, lower than that in neighboring countries such as Singapore and Malaysia, reports said. Endi