The ongoing pandemic might have slowed down the advancement of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), but not its coverage in the media. Pundits and scholars across the world have kept publishing opinion articles and analyses on a daily basis speculating about its demise, or its reboot.
While Indonesia may not have the best internet connectivity in Southeast Asia, one thing it is certainly doing well compared to some other ASEAN member states is providing 4G availability to its estimated population of over 260 million. A 2019 report by London-based Opensignal titled, “The State of Mobile Network Experience” revealed that after Singapore and Thailand, Indonesia performs the best in ASEAN in terms of providing 4G availability.
Can you imagine waking up and not being able to check your phone? For most of us it is as essential as our morning coffee to look at our texts, emails and social media. To be informed of the world and inform the world of us. But imagine not just a day but weeks, and then months without internet connection. Internet is a fundamental tool for society because it has the ability to make entire towns, cities and even countries visible to the rest of the world.
While Indonesia may not have the best internet connectivity in Southeast Asia, one thing it is certainly doing well compared to some other ASEAN countries is providing 4G availability to its estimated population of 269.54 million. According to a recent report by London-based Opensignal entitled “The State of Mobile Network Experience”, after Singapore and Thailand, Indonesia performs the best in ASEAN in terms of providing 4G availability.
A recent analysis by discount code portal CupoNation Indonesia found that Indonesia ranks low in Southeast Asian countries in terms of fibre optic internet connection speeds, which heavily depends on a country’s infrastructure, geography, and many other factors. Being able to only provide a mere 200 megabytes per second (Mbps) to its internet users, Indonesia is placed fifth place out of six countries, only managing to outperform Cambodia.The sad fact is that this comes as no surprise.
