Distinguished Participants of the Seminar,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Assalaamu’alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh,

First of all, let us praise to God almighty for his blessing so that we can gather here together in the Seminar "New ways to Empower Indonesia With Internet and ICT's" and the launching of "Secure and Sustainable Telecenter Handbook" CD.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The handbook of “Secure and Sustainable Telecenter” contains information and guidance of how to empower the uniquely Indonesian “wartel” (telecommunication kiosks) and “warnet” (Internet cafés) as telecenters with various activities that generate value added. Such case studies outlined in the handbook would be of great interest particularly since the handbook not only documents “best practice” abroad but also a survey of Indonesia’s warnets with its specific characteristics and geographical condition of Indonesia. In order to be successful, such experiments must be able to tailor its services to specific individual telecommunication service needs. Telecenters can be effective information distribution centers and their development should be encouraged since Indonesia’s development indicator will be closely related to the consumption of information by its people.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Talking about Telecenter as described in the handbook, reminds me of the idea of “Global Village” put forward by Marshal McLuhan in 1960’s. He believes that television and telecommunication technologies could change the world into “one global villages” where borders between countries became blurred. The idea of “the global village” remains powerful until today especially trough the development of mass media and telecommunication network where at the same time people can communicate and be informed of the situation happened on the other side of the world.

Rapid progress and vast generation of information continues hand in hand with the convergence of mass media, information technology and telecommunication services. Over the last seven years, the Internet is the “highway” in which such convergence grew rapidly using TCP/IP technology. The Internet is capable to deliver information in a fast capacity in text, voice and even multimedia format. As a result, people are entering many new kind of activities which will create a new paradigm in communication. No doubt this will also influence the social, politics, culture and all other dimensions of life. But most urgently needed now after experiencing the effect of monetary economic crisis, is the greater use of of the Internet to enhance competitiveness of Indonesia’s businesses – large or small.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

By nature, the development of various technologies are not necessarily inter-changeable but they can compliment one another. The development of conventional mass media and telecommunication are still needed despite the presence of the new Internet technology. Since the mass of the population are not yet able to afford to use it, their mastery level of Internet and the capacity of the “last mile” infrastructure itself, radio and TV will still be the main channels to disseminate information in Indonesia. There are many people in the village nor town that have not yet had the basic access to telephones. Every effort must be made to combine radio and television as means to spread the Internet or else the "digital divide" that is the gap between people who have access to information (information haves) and people hove no access to information (information have-nots) will widen.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The topic of today’s seminar, which implicitly calls for various forms of telecenters to be deployed to increase the distribution of information and communication services, is very appropriate to the condition in Indonesia today. Telecenters, which provide shared access of information, can become a government priority and their development can become a policy to bridge the digital divide. Various types of telecenters – each which uniquely serve their surrounding community – can be expected to be models for shared access so that the spread of critical information for SMEs, for educators, for students and other dynamic elements of our society can be quickly achieved.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The development of telecommunication infrastructure in Indonesia nowadays is still inadequate if we compare it with the population size of Indonesia. Our teledensity is still at around 3 % and users are mostly in the urban area. There are over 43,000 villages that have not yet had a telephone access. To achieve full coverage of these villages, we have to realize that we need a large amount of fund for telecommunication development.

The Telecommunication Act No.36/1999 serves as the groundwork for the national telecommunication development. It mandated the spirit of anti-monopoly with the expectation that this will attract more private sectors to invest. The abolishment of monopoly stimulates the competition in telecommunication infrastructure development. The competition encourages telecommunication providers to maximize their capabilities to serve our large potential market.

The strategy taken by the telecom providers in dealing the new competition era in general is to avoid risky investments. Hence, their services tend to only focus in the urban areas that potentially can offer a fast return on investment (in “marketable” or “commercially viable” areas).

By regulatory intervention, however, the government attempts to push for the deployment of telecommunication development in less commercially viable areas with mandating specific build-out targets which is tied to the telecom providers’ commitment in their license agreement. With No. 36/99 Act, the government will push the development in non marketable areas through the “universal access and universal service obligation” (USO) commitment.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The government now is process of developing Indonesia’s USO program by preparing the fund as a trigger to develop telecom infrastructure. This program will be deployed in stages according to the fund availability and priorities.

At the first stage, the government is planning to build 1 telephone line in each village. We hope that this will be expanded to be a community telecenter for that village which will increase the village’s competitiveness and be the central of local people activities that could support their specific needs.

For the next stage, the government will maximize the fund through the improvement of telecommunications lines for public service points such as schools, hospitals and other governmental facilities. Those new lines are hoped to enable to spread of e-government and e-commerce services.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Through this seminar, the government hopes improve its documentation of telecenter “best practice” in Indonesia and abroad and to obtain various policy recommendations to improve the telecommunication and telecommunication services sectors. We are particularly interested in the the development of telecenters and infrastructure in rural and remote areas.

At this opportunity, I would also like to extend my gratitude and appreciation to the members of organizing committee of this seminar, their sponsors and all who contributed to this very important seminar.

Finally, by saying bismillahirrahmanirrahim (in the name of Allah the Merciful and Beneficient), I declare this seminar “New Ways to Empower Indonesia With the Internet and ICTs” officially open.

 

Wassalaamu’alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh

Director General of Post and Telecommunication,

                        (signed)

              DJAMHARI SIRAT, Ph.D.