Bisnis.com, JAKARTA- Indonesia ranks 96th in the world for internet speed and among the lowest in Southeast Asia. With an area of ​​1.9 million km2, Ookla reports that the average download speed for Indonesian mobile internet is 24.21 Mbps, while the upload speed for fixed broadband is 27.11 Mbps.

On the other hand, Indiawith an area of ​​3.28 million km, has a download speed of 43.76 Mbps for cellular and 53.42 Mbps for fixed broadband, indicating that the size of the area is not always the cause of lower internet quality in one region compared to other countries.

So what makes India seem to be faster than Indonesia?

Many factors affect the quality of internet in Indonesia and India in the eyes of the world.

However, what stands out is the availability 5G. The fifth generation technology was introduced in India in July 2022 and will not be commercialized until October 2022.

After being rolled out in India for more than four months, 5G is having a huge impact on the state of cellular in the country.

Mobile speeds in India have increased by 115%, lifting India 49 places in the Speedtest Global Index™ since the launch of 5G, from 118th place in September 2022 to 69th place in January 2023.

Ookla® data shows LTE speed improvements for Jio and Airtel since launching 5G services as their entire investment in network upgrades pays off.

The download speed of 5G is on average 25 times faster than that of 4G. 5G performance has improved among early 5G adopters in most telecom circles, Kolkata reached the fastest median 5G download speed in January 2023 of over 500 Mbps.

Jio experienced the highest average 5G download speed of 506.25 Mbps in Kolkata, while Airtel reached 268.89 Mbps in Delhi.

The availability of 5G has increased 55 times. Airtel and Jio have ambitious targets for the deployment of 5G networks. Since the launch of the 5G network, the availability of 5G on 5G-enabled devices has increased steadily, reaching 8% for Airtel and 5.1% for Jio.

5G is increasingly impacting the competitive landscape, where Speedtest® users are migrating from Vi as the carrier does not provide 5G.

5G also puts India ahead of several G20 countries, such as Mexico, Russia and Argentina, as well as its neighbours: Indonesia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. India also overtook Turkey (average download speed of 30.98 Mbps/65th place in the Global Speedtest Index), South Africa (34.71 Mbps/58th place) and Brazil (35.85 Mbps /58th place)57).

Meanwhile, according to the Opensignal report, although relatively new, the availability of 5G networks in India has increased significantly to 29.9 percent, almost close to Singapore (30 percent) and the United States (31 percent). ).

Moreover, 5G in the country has also shown a real improvement over the previous technology i.e. 4G.

“In six countries, the average download speed of 5G is more than 10 times faster than the speed of 4G: India [19,2x]Malaysia [14,4x]Sri Lanka [13,8x]Brazil [13,5x]Kuwait [10,8x]and Guatemala [10,4x]“, he said in the report, Thursday (13/7/2023).

And Indonesia?

Indonesia also has 5G, but progress is very slow. The latest Opensignal report shows that Indonesia ranks last in terms of 5G availability. Even though it has been around for 2 years, 5G availability in Indonesia has lost out to neighboring Malaysia and Vietnam.

Quoted on the itbusiness page, Wednesday (7/12/2023), OpenSignal 5G availability in Indonesia is only 0.9 percent or less than Vietnam which is 2.0 percent and the Malaysia by 20.5 percent.

As for Southeast Asia, Singapore remains the champion in terms of 5G availability with a rate of 30%.

The Opensignal report also reveals that the average 5G download speed in Indonesia is only 59.7 Mbps and ranks second lowest after Peru.

The average 5G download speed in Indonesia is lower than that of Thailand (99.7 Mbps), the Philippines (136 Mbps) and Vietnam (217 Mbps).

5G technology itself is one of Kemenkominfo’s concerns to boost Indonesia’s internet speed in the eyes of the world.

The Ministry of Communication and Informatics (Kemenkominfo) hopes that later the 700 MHz frequency spectrum, which will be auctioned in the near future, will be used for the 5G network, and not for other technologies inferior like 4G and 2G.

Director of Information and Public Communication at the Ministry of Communication and Informatics, Usman Kansong, said this was inseparable from the government’s push for the telecom trend that was already heading towards 5G. .

“So the 700 MHz frequency should be used for 5G, not 4G. What are you doing for 4G, we are already behind,” Usman said in Bisnis, Thursday (8/31/2023).

However, according to Usman, Internet penetration in Indonesia only covers 80 percent of all regions in the country.

Usman therefore believes that in areas already covered by the Internet, new frequencies must be filled with 5G networks. Meanwhile, for the remaining 20% ​​of areas that have not yet benefited from 4G penetration, only 4G can occupy the new frequency.

“For those areas, we don’t have 5G first,” Usman said.

Usman said the migration from 3G network to 4G network has made Indonesian internet much faster. Therefore, if carriers start migrating to 5G networks, something similar will also happen.

“So moving from 4G to 5G will increase our internet capacity,” Usman said.

Additionally, Usman said Indonesia’s internet would be even faster when the auction for the 700 MHz frequency spectrum is completed.

Additionally, according to Usman, the frequency spectrum used by analog television can be used to become a 5G network by cellular operators.

Furthermore, Usman admitted that the increase in internet speed is also inseparable from the presence of Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC).

“Now that the combined mobile and fixed technology has been found, it’s definitely better, it adds more speed,” Usman said.

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