Palapa Ring Connects 514 Regencies/Cities In Indonesia, Internet Access Is Increasingly Important During Pandemic

Illustration. (Photo: Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Gun Gun Siswadi, an academic from Esa Unggul University Jakarta, said that now Indonesia has entered the digital era. The reason is, in terms of infrastructure alone, the government has built what is called the Palapa Ring.

According to him, this is the backbone of the digital economy, which connects 514 regencies or cities in Indonesia by providing high-speed internet access to the public.

"This means that in terms of infrastructure this must be done by the government and this has been done and inaugurated by Mr. Joko Widodo (Jokowi), hopefully, this can be well connected to all provinces and all regencies in Indonesia", said Gun Gun in a discussion with the theme "Utilization of ICT in the Era of Adapting to New Habits" initiated by BAKTI Kominfo, quoted on Friday, July 9.

He said, with the infrastructure that can be connected between regions, it turns out that the number of internet users based on data from APJII (Association of Indonesian Internet Service Providers) now reaches around 196.71 people. This means that 73.7 percent of the Indonesian people are already connected to the internet.

"This data is extraordinary", he explained.

Therefore, he continued, with a large number of internet users in Indonesia, a wave of information "tsunami" occurred. Today information has become a basic human need, especially for people in the country.

"Being one of the basic needs, it is not only the three basic needs of the Indonesian people, namely clothing, food, shelter, but also information, one of which is information", he said.

"We are entering the information age where all of our activities depend on information. Now we are also facing the era of the COVID-19 pandemic, therefore we must respond to this as well as possible so that we can get out of the pandemic", he added.

During this pandemic, he continued, internet usage is increasing. The need for online transactions is also increasing because almost all activities are carried out from home.

"I estimate that currently more than 200 million Indonesians will be connected to the internet", he said.