Amidst lockdowns and travel restrictions around the world this past year, one thing has kept us connected – the internet. Digital connectivity has helped businesses remain operational with a remote workforce, has allowed students to continue learning online and made possible conveniences such as food and grocery delivery. Yet the pandemic has also highlighted the vast digital divide in countries like Indonesia, especially between urban populations and those in remote, underserved communities.

Statistics released by the Indonesian Internet Provider’s Association (APJII) show that internet penetration in the country reached 73.7 percent in 2020, a marked improvement against 64.8 percent in 2018. A closer look, though, reveals that the gains have been unevenly distributed across the country. Internet penetration continues to be largely concentrated in urban centres on the main islands of Java and Sumatra, with remote islands, such as Maluku and Papua, lagging behind.

Given the critical importance of digital connectivity during this pandemic and the country’s ambitions to develop its digital economy, the lack of high-speed, low-cost and reliable internet connectivity across Indonesia presents a major hurdle.

Satellites well placed to connect vast Indonesian archipelago

With 17,000 islands making Indonesia the largest archipelago in the world, connecting the country via terrestrial network infrastructure would not only come at a huge economic cost, but might even be a logistical impossibility by virtue of the country’s geography.  We need only look up above us, into space, for the solution – satellites. Orbiting the earth thousands of kilometres above us, satellites have the ability to connect virtually any point on earth. Recent satellite technology advancements mean that satellites can now offer a comparable user experience to fibre-optic internet if they are operating closer to Earth at medium earth orbit (MEO) and lower earth orbit (LEO). Satellites today can also carry a lot more bandwidth than before, should they be equipped with high-throughput payloads.

Traditionally, satellite connectivity was synonymous with high cost, high latency, low speed and low capacity. Recent advancements in high-throughput satellite technology, such as those seen in Indonesia’s state-supported Satria satellite and SES’s upcoming O3b mPOWER MEO constellation, allow satellites to now offer a fibre-equivalent user experience if orbiting at the low (<1,000km) or medium earth orbits (MEO <8,000km).

These advancements in satellite technology have led to an improved user experience. Gone are the days of endless buffering due to high latency and low-speed internet. Terabit-level capacity and fibre-equivalent latency on some of these upcoming satellite networks make them well-suited for seamless connections to cloud-enabled applications. This in turn opens up new possibilities for the cloud in industries located in remote areas of Indonesia, such as those in mining, marine and offshore, agriculture, fisheries and so on.

Indonesia is making huge strides to improve the country’s digital infrastructure and realize the true potential of its young populace in an increasingly competitive digital economy. (./.)