Telkom Talks About Netflix That Has Not Completed Commercial Agreements

Netflix Illustration (unsplash)

JAKARTA - PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom) has indeed unblocked the Netflix service. But now, they are even talking about the video on demand platform that has not finalized the commercial agreement between the two.

"There has not been a commercial and technical agreement between Telkom and Netflix," said Telkom's Director of Wholesale & International Service Dian Rachmawan in his official statement, Tuesday, September 22.

Dian said that until now, Netflix has not agreed to direct-peering to distribute heavy traffic for video content. When in fact, Netflix HD video content is very greedy consuming bandwidth.

"If this condition is allowed, capital expenditures and operating expenses will only run out to increase network capacity for the sake of Netflix. This is all we bear, while from Netflix there is no" sacrifice "whatsoever. Netfilx's monopoly on bandwidth usage is currently very large and discriminatory," said Dian.

Not only that, Dian said that Netflix should not only place its servers in Singapore, but its high-resolution video content must be distributed to Telkom's CDN network in Indonesia, meaning that Netflix is obliged to interconnect (direct-peering) with Telkom's CDN.

According to Dian, Netflix should pay income tax on economic results and benefits in Indonesian jurisdictions, not only collecting VAT tax from customers.

Although there is no balanced commercial agreement for Telkom, the company will still give its customers the opportunity to enjoy the Netflix streaming service platform.

Based on Dian's report, Netflix subscribers generally use fixed Internet access like Indihome instead of using Cellular Internet access, which consumes their payload data quota.

Previously, in early July TelkomGrup announced that it would unblock the Netflix platform after more than four years of not allowing Over The Top (OTT) to appear on its network.

Telkom has begun to soften because it sees Netflix showing its commitment to be seriously accepted by the Indonesian people through the steps it takes regarding content handling.

For example, such as ensuring the availability of tools in the system to restrict access to sensitive impressions and age mismatches for subscribers (parental control). Also Netflix is required to provide a mechanism for handling customer complaints.