Indonesian operator Telkomsel, the mobile arm of Telkom Indonesia, has announced further progress with delivering connectivity to disadvantaged areas of the country.
The company says that close to 15,000 base transceiver stations (BTS) had been deployed by the end of September in the country’s so-called 3T regions. Roughly translated, 3T refers to Frontier, Outermost, and Disadvantaged areas.
This effort to deliver connectivity to border areas in particular was carried out as part of the country’s Universal Service Obligation (USO).
A spokesperson for Telkomsel said that 5,300 BTS are in 3T border areas and 7,800 are broadband BTS. Some 892 USO BTS are now serving 841 villages which were previously without telecommunications. A number of BTS are 4G-enabled.
Telkomsel, alongside telecoms accessibility agency BAKTI, plans to significantly expand the number of 2G and 4G BTS in many villages by the end of this year.
It can’t be easy trying to extend coverage to everyone in the world’s largest island country, not to mention one of its most populous. However, figures indicate that by the end of the third quarter of this year Telkomsel had deployed more than 209,000 BTS countrywide. This is an increase of more than 14.5 percent year-on-year.
Coverage now reaches over 97 percent of Indonesia, though not the same percentage of the population. The spokesperson indicated that Telkomsel is targeting reaching 95 percent of the population by the end of this year.
