Meaningful Broadband Comes to Indonesia!
The big breakthrough for Meaningful Broadband in Indonesia came in a symposium of the Indonesia ICT Council on Sept 22, 2015. That event reported on a year of test market activity among a trial group of seven regions, showed the feasibility and readiness of achieving a massive “bottom up” leapfrogging into “meaningful broadband” on a “lateral basis” across the 500 regional government units known as “kabupaten.” This event created the platform for the implementation of Meaningful Broadband to an additional group of 25 million Indonesian citizens in 2016.
Meaningful Broadband’s Evolution in Indonesia
After a decade of networking in Jakarta, Meaningful Broadband-Indonesia (MBI) was established in 2015, through collaboration between Ilham A Habibie, Executive Team Leader of the government’s inter-ministerial ICT Coordinating Council (Detiknas) and Prof Craig Warren Smith of Digital Divide Institute. The government has requested that MBI provide the thought leadership and research needed to support the spread of “meaningful broadband ecosystems” on a bottom-up basis to 517 regional government districts and many small cities in the world’s fourth most populous nation. Supporting the Meaningful Broadband Kabupaten initiative of Detiknas, MBI’s first task was to form a partnership with the nation’s large state-owned enterprise, PT Telkom. As an MBI partner, it will joined with a group of “multistakeholder” partners incorporating The World Bank and other domestic and international organizations. Their innovative products, services and investments tied to public-private partnerships will contribute to test-market activation of Meaningful Broadband Ecosystems in Indonesia.
In addition to providing a “proof of concept” for how the internet can reduce inequities in development nations, Meaningful Broadband also may also help lessen another geopolitical problem: terrorism. At a time when discord is accelerating between Islam and the Western world, it is significant that the world’s largest concentration of Muslims will be beneficiaries of Meaningful Broadband. To understand how Meaningful Broadband’s deployment could bring “digital empowerment” to the Muslim world and, in that way, reduce tensions between Islam and the West).
For the many Indonesian stakeholders who have advocated for Meaningful Broadband, Sept 22, 2015. was a milestone. Bringing together representatives of 38 localities who pledged their participation in Meaningful Broadband, it represented the culmination of a full decade of networking among Indonesia’s ICT stakeholders from all sectors, as they gradually came to embrace the concept. To learn about the evolution of Meaningful Broadband in Indonesia. Though the first seminars on this theme in Jakarta were conducted in 2006, the key event came in 2012, when the major Indonesian ICT stakeholders from all sectors signed a Jakarta Declaration on Meaningful Broadband. It led to a Meaningful Broadband Working Group (WBWG) located within the presidential National Palace (Istana Negara), established in 2012. In that year, MBWG invited a World Bank ICT consultant, Jan Van Rees, to join the team. His technical expertise led to the first field visits in each of the major Indonesian regions. The core concept was to activate the underutilized 42,000 fiber optic network known as the Palapa Ring via a last mile solution, and to circulate the fiber to each region’s “citizen facing institutions,” which include not merely the primary government agencies but also schools, health clinics and even civil society institutions, such as mosques and agricultural cooperatives.
Craig Smith handing over the Meaningful Broadband report to Ilham Habibie at the Meaningful Broadband Congress (MBC’13).
Pak Basyir Ahmad is the mayor of the city of Pekalongan, which has begun test-market deployment of Meaningful Broadband.
In 2015, to provide the activate the leadership to support this structure, Ilham A Habibie assigned Prof Craig to serve as chairman of a local think tank, called Meaningful Broadband-Indonesia (MBI). It aggregates a group of international and national partners from intergovernmental agencies, multinational corporations, local corporations and universities. In 2016, these partners will be invited to participate in test-market activity. MBI is now negotiating with several international institutions, including The World Bank Group. The effect may be to establish Indonesia’s Meaningful Broadband as their global “proof of concept,” demonstrating how the internet can serve as a platform for contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. Indeed, Meaningful Broadband-Indonesia may serve as poof of concept for how other large mid-level developing nations can bring digital empowerment to their lower middle class, including China and India.
What is meant by DDI-I’s “bottoms up” approach to Broadband Development?
In Indonesia, as other large emerging markets, power must be shared between ministers based in the capital cties, and regional “chiefs” who may have greater flexibility in implementing a holistic approach to ICT innovation. Indeed, the Indonesian regional chiefs (bupati) and mayors (walikota) seem inclined to share best practices as they upgrade their e-government activity and move towards the establishment of broadband ecosystems. See reports which reveal the feasibility and design of a “bottoms up” plan for the nation’s broadband development led by test-market deployments among the nation’s 500 “kabupaten” (local districts), which are mostly all connected to the Palapa Ring.
Meaningful Broadband’s Evolution in Indonesia
After a decade of networking in Jakarta, Meaningful Broadband-Indonesia (MBI) was established in 2015, through collaboration between Ilham A Habibie, Executive Team Leader of the government’s inter-ministerial ICT Coordinating Council (Detiknas) and Prof Craig Warren Smith of Digital Divide Institute. The government has requested that MBI provide the thought leadership and research needed to support the spread of “meaningful broadband ecosystems” on a bottom-up basis to 517 regional government districts and many small cities in the world’s fourth most populous nation. Supporting the Meaningful Broadband Kabupaten initiative of Detiknas, MBI’s first task was to form a partnership with the nation’s large state-owned enterprise, PT Telkom. As an MBI partner, it will joined with a group of “multistakeholder” partners incorporating The World Bank and other domestic and international organizations. Their innovative products, services and investments tied to public-private partnerships will contribute to test-market activation of Meaningful Broadband Ecosystems in Indonesia.
In addition to providing a “proof of concept” for how the internet can reduce inequities in development nations, Meaningful Broadband also may also help lessen another geopolitical problem: terrorism. At a time when discord is accelerating between Islam and the Western world, it is significant that the world’s largest concentration of Muslims will be beneficiaries of Meaningful Broadband. To understand how Meaningful Broadband’s deployment could bring “digital empowerment” to the Muslim world and, in that way, reduce tensions between Islam and the West.
For the many Indonesian stakeholders who have advocated for Meaningful Broadband, Sept 22, 2015. was a milestone. Bringing together representatives of 38 localities who pledged their participation in Meaningful Broadband, it represented the culmination of a full decade of networking among Indonesia’s ICT stakeholders from all sectors, as they gradually came to embrace the concept. To learn about the evolution of Meaningful Broadband in Indonesia, go here. Though the first seminars on this theme in Jakarta were conducted in 2006, the key event came in 2012, when the major Indonesian ICT stakeholders from all sectors signed a Jakarta Declaration on Meaningful Broadband. It led to a Meaningful Broadband Working Group (WBWG) located within the presidential National Palace (Istana Negara), established in 2012. In that year, MBWG invited a World Bank ICT consultant, Jan Van Rees, to join the team. His technical expertise led to the first field visits in each of the major Indonesian regions. The core concept was to activate the underutilized 42,000 fiber optic network known as the Palapa Ring via a last mile solution, and to circulate the fiber to each region’s “citizen facing institutions,” which include not merely the primary government agencies but also schools, health clinics and even civil society institutions, such as mosques and agricultural cooperatives.
