Internet Development in Indonesia: A Preview and Perception
Ferry Astika Saputra1
Department of Information Technology
Electronic Engineering Polytechnic Institute of Surabaya
60111 East Java, Indonesia

For first time I would like to introduce my self, my name is Ferry Astika Saputra, I work at
Electrical Engineering Polytechnic Institute of Surabaya located at East Java Indonesia.
Since October 2nd 2002, I have been studying at Computer and Network Center under
supervision of Prof Shin-ichi Tadaki. My current research subject is the IPv6 migration
strategy.

In this article I will discuss about the internet development in my country generally,

starting from the history, the development process and current status.

An introduction to Indonesia
Before describing technical issues, it is better to make a brief introduction to Indonesia.
Indonesia is composed of seventeen thousand islands that stretch over five thousand miles
along the equator. The Malay Peninsula and Indochina are situated to the north-west, andthe continent of Australia lies due south. The Philippines and Micronesia lie northward.
Because consisting of thousands islands, Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelago. Itsconstellation of islands straddles the divide between the Asian and Australian continentalplates. As a result, the islands offer a stunning variety of topographies and ecologies:
Mist-shrouded volcanoes and mountains, unexplored rain forests, thousands of miles ofbeaches, and endless offshore reefs support a dazzling abundance of wildlife. Those makeIndonesia an ideal destination for adventure and eco-travel. Maybe some of you know theislands named BALI, one of most beautiful place in the world.
There are five main islands, Java, Kalimantan (Borneo), Sulawesi, Sumatra and Papua.
Among the five main islands, Java is the most populated, and also with many activities
concentrated in this island including the capital city of Indonesia, Jakarta.

History of Indonesian Internet Development
Like other developing countries, internet development in Indonesia just begun in the early
1

JICA participant at Computer and Network Center, Saga University

of 1990. It was a same time with neighbor countries: Malaysia, Singapore, Filipina andThailand. But in Indonesia internet development story was different from theirs. It was veryunique. Because it was not started by government but started from little community called
Paguyuban Network (Paguyuban Net). In Indonesian, Paguyuban means group. This group
was initiated by Indonesian students who studied in Canada and members of the Indonesian
Amateur Radio Association. The connection used the radio frequency at 2 meter
wavelength, and only used “store and forward” emails and bulletin board systems. One ofthe pioneer, Dr. Onno Purbo said, ”At that time we only used PC/XT as gateway forcommunication between Indonesia and Canada andthe domain was named ampr.org”.

After that many projects established to connect Indonesia to the world. Some project called
JASIPAKTA and IPTEKNET was developed by the government. JASIPAKTA sponsored by
LAPAN (Indonesian Aeronautics and Space Institute), was connecting the LAPAN and DLR(Germany Aeronautics and Space) via radio frequency with 70cm wavelength. IPTEKNET
sponsored by BPPT was also connected to DLR but through X.25 protocol.
Then in the middle of 1994, IndoNet, the first commercial Internet Service Provider, wasestablished at Jakarta. At that time IndoNet only had a dial up connection to the upperstream provider abroad. Maybe we can imagine how costly it was. But as the firstcommercial ISP, IndoNet was success to introduce new technologies and to get new internet
user for few years.

Figure 1: Indonesian Internet Gateway in February 1996[5]Table 1: List of Indonesian internet gateway in 1996[5]NameLocation

Connection

Speed

IPTEK-NET

Jakarta

6 other cities

256Kbps

ITB

Bandung-

2000Kbps

IndoNetJakarta

5 other cities

256KbpsRadNetJakarta

2 other cities

512Kbps

Sistelindo

Jakarta

2 other cities

768Kbps

IdOLA-Net

Jakarta

17 cities

512Kbps

2Mbps
CBN-NetJakarta-256Kbps

Sisfo-Net

Bandung-

128KbpsWasantara-Net

Bandung

22 other cities

128KbpsVSAT

Melsa-NetBandung-Total Bandwidth

128Kbps3432 Kbps

Network Infrastructure
The topology of Indonesian internet gateway in 1996 is shown in Figure 1.

According thetable(Table 1), the highest speed connection was through ITB (Bandung Institute ofTechnology). It is connected from AI3 (Asia Internet Interconnection Initiatives) WIDE
Project Japan. The ground station and its peripherals for satellite data communications hadbuilt and been ready to operate in October 1996. It was link to the JSAT Ku-Band satellite
and connected to the ground station at Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST).
NAIST has worked as AIII Net Hub in Satellite Network which interconnecting its members inseveral Asian countries. This joint project also initiated as the first Indonesia educational
backbone which inter-connecting several universities and research institute.
Nowadays Indonesia has 670 Mbps bandwidth (incoming=170 Mbps, outgoing=500Mbps)
for international connection as a whole. This indicates that the internet traffic increases
almost 200 times in the period from 1996 to 2002. It is not a small number for a new internet
comer like Indonesia. The high increment of bandwidth

was caused by high demands frominternet subscribers, many Dotcoms companies established, and government instances,universities trying to connect to internet.

Figure 2 : Indonesian University Network by AI3-ITB[5]About the Internet backbone, also in 1996, PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia, Tbk, thebiggest telecommunication company in Indonesia started to build the biggest internet
backbone with 2 Mbps using ATM technology and B-ISDN over 48 cities. It was followed byPT. Aplikanusa Lintasarta who built an internet backbone with 2 Mbps using the frame-relay
technology over 17 cities.
Both two main backbones located only in Java and Bali. The backbone in other islands
was using Palapa satellite B series (owned by PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia, Tbk ).
According the press release in January 2002, PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia, Tbk will build
the new backbone using MPLS (Multi Protocol Layering Switch) technology with 155 Mbps
over 130 points in more than 90 cities across the archipelago. This project started at July
2002 and will finish at 2007.
In a line ofinfrastructure availability the number of ISP also increase significantly, from

10 ISP at the end of 1996 to 50 in the end of 1999, then still increase 179 at 2002(Table 2).
And also for IP addresses and AS number demand, it indicates a high growth almost seventimes from 1999 to 2002(Table 3)..
Table 2 :Number of ISP 1999-2002[1]

ISP

1999

2000

2001

2002*

50

139

172

179

Table 3: IP Address and AS Number Demand in period 1999-2002[1]IPAddress

AS(in Class C Block)Number

1999

256

3

2000

1072

16

2001

1553

29

2002*

1649

34

For internet exchange technology for efficient routing in regional area, Indonesia Internet
Exchange started to develop at 1998 by peering 3 biggest ISP internet exchanges,IndosatNet, TelkomNet and Satelindo. Figure 3 shows the current network map of IIX
logically.

Figure 3: Indonesia Internet Exchange Logical Network Map in 20023]

Internet User Demand
The Internet in 1999 still indicated high demand, although in that period Indonesia had
economic crisis. This phenomenon is explained from users’ as that internet and its
applications are the cheapest way to communicate, comparing with traditional ways (e.g.
telephone and mail).
Table 4: The increment of Indonesian Internet subscribers and Internet Users[1]2
subscriberusers

1998

134.000

512.0001999

256.000

1.000.000

2000

400.000

1.900.000

2001

581.000

4.200.000

2002*

1.000.000

8.000.000But the high demand, Indonesia is still low in the internet penetration level comparing withother ASEAN countries, the number of penetration is 0.09 %: the highest penetration is inSingapura 29.9%, followed by Malaysia 15.9%, Thailand 3.8%, and Filipina 2.6%. Vietnam,
Cambodia, and Laos are still lower than Indonesia.
The number 0.09%, almost 80% internet user is in Java and Bali Islands, and for the fiveother islands the penetrations is only 0.0072 %. So the internet development is still a big
challenge for Indonesia.
Current ProjectIn the middle of April 1996, Secretary General Department of Tourism, Post andTelecommunication invited government and private parties to arrange National Information
Infrastructure concepts. The basis of this concept was available network that wastelecommunication network and developed. Afterwards, there was appointed small team forformulating National Information Infrastructure. From this team, then appear the firstIndonesian IT Project called NUSANTARA - 21. Nusantara means Indonesian archipelago ,and 21 means 21st century. From infrastructure part, its early concept, NUSANTARA - 21
was found based on three main infrastructures : Archipelagic Super Highway, Multimedia
2Internet subscriberｓ mean a person who has internet connection to their home and use it for
personally and internet users mean a person who only use the internet but doesn’t have internet
connection to their home, usually access internet from office, campus or internet café.

Cities and Nusantara Multimedia Community Access Center. First infrastructure,Archipelagic Super Highway, will connect all provinces central city in Indonesia with various
backbone network facilities according to the need of real bandwidth. Beside that,Archipelagic Super Highway will covers information infrastructure in development areassuch as SIJORI (Singapore-Johor-Riau), BIMP-EATA (Brunei Indonesia Malaysia Philippine
East Asia Growth Area), IMT-GTb (Indonesia Malaysia Thailand Growth Triangle), and AIDA
(Australia Indonesia Development Area).

Second infrastructure, Multimedia Cities was thecenter of economic activities that has "Road" of reliable city information. Multimedia Cities
will also providing complete access lines and including its supply. With those capabilities,
citizens in the Multimedia Cities would able to carry out their productive activities fasterthrough information transaction. Teleeducation applications, telemedic, electronics trading,and electronics banking were a part of general applications that would be implemented in
Multimedia Cities. The last infrastructure, Nusantara Multimedia Community Access Center,
could covers broadband payphone, broadband business centres, networked library, andmultimedia community kiosks. With service point support owned by Telkom and Posindothat spread in entirely Indonesian archipelago, it was estimated in 2000 all mother cities ofsub-district in entirely Indonesian archipelago have access to N-21 through Palapa Satellite,
Telkom - 1, Garuda, or other satellite systems in Indonesia. Physically, N-21 was progressedby using "ring of rings" structure concept and technology varieties and in utilizing side,concept used was "network of network" and application varieties.
Unfortunately in early of 1997 Indonesia had an economic crisis, many projects wascancelled at that time, including N-21. But some of N-21 concept still exist and continue todevelop, for example the development of Indonesian backbone over 90 cities using ATM
until now still continue and will finish until 2007.

Conclusion
The Internet in Indonesia is still in development period and far from establishing. Good
responses and attentions from the Indonesian government take big effects for Indonesian IT
communities (Universities, research Institutes, ISPs) to improve the internet condition.

Andalso there is still a big challenge to make 230 million people of Indonesia connecting to theworld.

Reference
1.

APJII ( Indonesian Internet Service Provider Association). 2002, Laporan Dewan
Pengurus APJII Masa-bakti 1999 - 27 Mei 2002, http://www.apjii.or.id2.

Directorate General of Post and Telecommunications, Republic of Indonesia 2002,
Internet Development in Indonesia,
http://www.sociedaddigital.org/Espanol/Archivos/Demografia_GeoYSociologiaDeLaRed/Geografia_De_La_Red/Document-21.pdf

3.

Indonesia Internet Exchange Team. 1999, General Information of IIX,
http://www.iix.net.id

4.

Kompas Online. 2002, Telkom Sambungkan 90 Kota dengan IP Backbone,
http://www.kompas.com/it/news/0202/05/231149.htm

5.

Onno W. Purbo. 2000, Awal Sejarah Internet Indonesia,
http://www.bogor.net/idkf/idkf-2/cuplikan-sejarah-internet-indonesia-05-2000.rtf.

6.

Onno W. Purbo, Melihat 5 Juta Bangsa Indonesia di Internet 10 Tahun Mendatang,
http://www.detikinet.com/database/onno/jurnal/200004/aplikasi/ap-37.shtml

7.

Directorate

General Of Posts and Telecommunications Department ofCommunications Republic of Indonesia, NUSANTARA-21,
http://www.postel.go.id/postel_text_eng/nusantara21.htm