Welcoming Eid Al-Fitr 1441 Hijri With Digital Friendship

Menkominfo Johnny G Plate (Screenshot of teleconference)

JAKARTA - Minister of Communication and Informatics (Menkominfo) Johnny G Plate conveyed the government's readiness to support digital friendship on Eid Al-Fitr. This was done as a 'new normal' way after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Johnny explained, his party has prepared a telecommunication operator network to anticipate the increase in cellular data usage traffic in Indonesia. Where the majority will use a lot of phone calls and video calls during Eid.

"Increase the capacity of the Base Transceiver Station (BTS) to anticipate traffic spikes and prepare mobile BTS if needed," said Johnny during an online press conference, Friday, May 22.

As a comparison, under normal conditions, internet traffic during Eid in the previous year has increased by about 10 to 15 percent. However, in the condition of Large-Scale Social Restrictions (PSBB), it is predicted that the increase in internet traffic could reach 30 to 40 percent.

Until now, based on data from operators, there are around 178 mobile BTS deployed to anticipate traffic spikes in emergency conditions of COVID-19, from the total BTS nationally totaling 479,125.

Later, a number of monitoring for the telecommunications network will be determined at strategic points during the PSBB and Eid conditions, namely in residential areas, toll roads, health centers and referral hospitals for COVID-19 services.

"We will also monitor telecommunications networks through the Network Operation Center (NOC) which operates 24 hours, 7 days a week," said Johnny.

It is currently known that Indonesia already has 173,294 existing 4G BTS in Q3 2019, 188,849 3G BTS and 116,982 2G BTS. Or a total of about 479,125 units.

Johnny and his party have also measured the Quality of Service (QoS) of voice and data services or cellular internet for cellular operators to ensure that telecommunications services are maintained.

The measurement results of voice services show an average call success of 94.21 percent, while the measurement of data services shows that the average download speed of mobile internet is 15.57 Mbps, the average upload speed is 13.34 Mbps and latency is 27 , 37 milliseconds.

Measurements were also carried out on the use of Youtube video streaming services and Whatsapp instant messages, where an average success rate of access to Youtube was 84.82 percent and Whatsapp was 90.6 percent.

Meanwhile, later in areas where the measurement results are not good, the Ministry of Communication and Information will coordinate with cellular operators to make efforts to repair or increase the capacity of the telecommunications network in that place.