17-Oct-18, Asia Times
Forty-two years after Indonesia launched Palapa A1 to become the world’s first developing country to use satellite communications, it is now on the verge of completing the Palapa Ring, a 67,887 km broadband fiber optic cable network stretching the length and breadth of the sprawling archipelago.
%20Information%20Ministry.jpg "Indonesia on the verge of a connectivity revolution (c) Information Ministry")
Image: Information Ministry
It has been a long time coming, starting as the less ambitious Nusantara 21 project in 1998, then expanding from an originally conceived east-west backbone into a national grid reaching all 34 provinces and 440 out of 514 cities and districts.
With fiber optic networks currently covering only the islands of Java, Sumatra and parts of Kalimantan, the Palapa Ring will be another feather in the cap of President Joko Widodo, whose bid for re-election in Apr-19 has been boosted by a vast infrastructure program which planners hope will inject new life into the Indonesian economy.