Telecom Infra Project (TIP), a US-based non-profit organization established in 2016, is helping five Indonesian telecom carriers test Open Radis Access Network (RAN) that reduces costs for building connectivity in remote and less populated islands in the eastern parts of the cuntry.
TIP established a TIP Community Lab and Center of Excellence at Telkom University in Indonesia, the first of its kind in Southeast Asia, in late 2020.
The Indonesian government completed Palapa Ring, a project of laying 35,000km of submarine fiber-optic cable systems and 21,000km of overland ones to link most islands for Internet connectivity, at the end of 2019. As a result, the number of Internet users in Indonesia increased to 197 million at the end of 2020, rising 8.9% on year and accounting for about 70% of population.
Connectivity is an important part of the Making Indonesia 4.0 program, launched in April 2018 to accelerate the country's digital transformation.
But as the Indonesian telecom carriers are still expanding 4G networks, they are financially unable or reluctant to build 5G networks.