Why 5G Network Still Hasn’t Applied Yet in Indonesia?

26 Apr 2022

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Network became an important aspect in our life especially in this modern era moreover in this pandemic, where almost everything is connected or at least some part of them related to internet. But what is network? Network is an interconnected set of computers or devices usually by cables or Wi-Fi in order to share resources. In order to exchange information from one device to another device we need a connection between them. Faster and bigger the need of information made network connection needed to improve its connection speed. If the connection use cable then, cable with better material is needed, but if the connection is wireless Wi-Fi or via Provider, then the technology must be improved.

Many IT professionals around the world compete to find or improve the broadband capacity and speed. As we know up until now, there are many types of broadband based on its generation. From 2G, 3G, 4G, and the new one 5G. But those aren’t the complete story of broadband generation, if there is 2G then there must be first generation, also there are 2,5G, 2,75G, 3,5G, and 3,75G. Every generation means the capacity and the speed of internet is improved especially in the latest two generation in this case still 3G and 4G where the performance and the speed are significantly improved, and we can see it in our daily life when we use phone with 3G network and another phone with 4G network, the performance is much better on 4G network. If 4G is already this good, then how 5G network would be? How fast it would be? Is it really as great as everyone talking about?

So how is 5G performance would be? Based on some articles it said that 5G technology able to cover IoT needs where the devices and flows of information is much bigger than what 4G can cover. 5G is up to 100 times faster than 4G. 5G can reach up to 10GBps. In example If we want to download or streaming video or film in high definition then it can be downloaded much faster and smoother if it is streaming. Another improvement of 5G is that the latency is lower than 4G (delay between sending and receiving information). It means that for example when we watch soccer then goal happened, in 5G connection it just takes 1 millisecond for our device receive the information, it significantly better than 4G that need 200 milliseconds to receive the same information. And lastly 5G has more security and regulations.

With all of 5G benefits and potential, it could be a great resource to improve technologies, business, and modern lifestyle in example the usage of IoT. Some country like United State and South Korea already implement this technology in their country. Then what make Indonesia still not implement this yet? Based on what government timeline to improve the technology, it was planned that 5G targeted to implemented in 2020 but as we see this still not came true, then it planned again to be implemented 5 years from 2020, and migration from TV analog to digital is planned in 2024. Not long-ago in December of 2019, Ministry of Communication and Information stated the real reasons why 5G network hasn’t used yet in Indonesia and focused in 4G. The main reason is government don’t want to rush the implementation because the infrastructure to implement this technology is still insufficient. Government want to be careful before this technology implemented because it will be a fundamental change from digitalization. The ministry highlighted three things that needed to be solved before implementation, there are arrangement of frequency spectrum that needed a reframing, choose the right technology on how 5G will be used in Indonesia, and lastly geostrategic position in Indonesia. But in reality, the urgency to change into 5G became more visible and more urgent. Because of this government speed up their work to make 5G available in Indonesia, recently government hold an auction (frequency auction) to providers in Indonesia. The winners will get the 2,3 GHz frequency as the base of 5G frequency, so they can use it accelerate deployment of IT infrastructure with 5G technology. With this news, the 5G technology is much closer for us to be reality.

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Marisa Karsen