Kominfo Believes That The Work Creation Law Can Encourage Digital TV Migration To 5G

Menkominfo Johnny G Plate (doc. Humas Kominfo)

JAKARTA - The Minister of Communication and Informatics (Menkominfo), Johnny G Plate, believes that the Job Creation Act is not only seen from one side, namely employment. But it can also provide significant changes in the broadcasting and telecommunications sector.

Johnny said, in the telecommunication and broadcasting sector, there were at least three regulations that were amended and updated with the existence of the Job Creation Law. The three laws include Law No.36 of 1999 concerning Telecommunications, Law No.32 of 2020 concerning Broadcasting, and Law No.38 of 2009 concerning Post.

"In the postal and broadcasting sector, the Job Creation Law amends and adds several provisions to the three laws," Johnny said in his press statement, Tuesday, October 6.

According to him, there are three fundamental things that influence each other from the ratification of the Job Creation Law. One of the things that Johnny discussed was the legal basis for the migration of analog to digital TV broadcasting and the certainty of the analog switch off (ASO) deadline.

He explained, ASO could make Indonesia catch up in the utilization of the 700MHz frequency spectrum which is now used for broadcasting, which could later be used for the purposes of education, health, and disaster management.

"To be the backbone of the national digital economy because without infrastructure and policy support in this sector, the digital economy will not be able to last," he said.

Second, according to Johnny, analog TV migration has been thought of since 2004, but until now it has not been implemented. Even though international agreements related to the implementation of ASO have been very long.

The existence of the Job Creation Law, according to Johnny, the completion of ASO is set by 2022. With the completion of ASO, Indonesia can save 700MHz frequency band. When analog TV is converted to digital, there are 700MHz frequency savings of 112MHz that can be used, one of which is for mobile broadband.

Johnny assesses that the existence of the Job Creation Law can support the acceleration of digital transformation and prevent inefficiencies in the use of limited resources such as the frequency spectrum and passive infrastructure.

"The infrastructure built by each industry player has caused high costs, whereas with the sharing infrastructure approach and frequency sharing, the industry can perform optimal efficiency. With this strength, the domestic telecommunications industry can compete with global players, including OTT," said Johnny.

This new regulation also provides an opportunity for business license holders that use radio frequency spectrum to cooperate with other telecommunication operators to implement new technology. One of them is the 5G network, which is an option for Indonesian cooperation in technology development.

"5G is one of the first milestones that has the potential to take advantage of this cooperation space. The technical fact that there is an ideal requirement of 100MHz width for each 5G network built can be addressed by a form of cooperation between frequency permit holders," said Johnny.