Digital Experts Ask Minister Of Communication And Information Budi Arie To Immediately Complete BTS Projects And Personal Data Protection

JAKARTA - The seat of the Minister of Communication and Information (Menkominfo) was finally occupied by Budi Arie Setiadi, who also serves as general chairman of the Pro Jokowi (Projo) volunteer organization.

Digital expert Anthony Leong stated that the position of Minister of Communication and Information is not easy, because Budi only has less than 1.5 years to complete various homework or homework from the Ministry of Communication and Information, especially regarding Base Transceiver Station (BTS).

"Menkominfo Budi Arie was entrusted by President Jokowi to ride the Kominfo which was previously adrift due to the Johnny G. Plate case which also caused many projects to be questioned for their sustainability," said Anthony in a statement received by VOI, Tuesday, July 18.

"Of course, the first homework he should pursue is related to the BTS project," he added.

Anthony explained that the BTS 4G Bakti Kemenkominfo tower construction project actually has a very good goal related to equitable internet access in Indonesia.

The reason is, this project targets the construction of 4G BTS towers in areas that are categorized as 3T (frontier, outermost, and underdeveloped).

Since 2020, the Ministry of Communication and Information has actually received instructions from President Jokowi to penetrate the 4G internet in more than 12 thousand villages in the country.

With the Ministry of Communication and Information Service in 2021 targeting to build 4,200 BTS towers in phase 1 and phase two in 2022 with the construction of 3,700 towers.

However, of the 7,900 BTS towers, only about 86 percent are claimed to be built with 1,900 on air (phase 1) status.

"Unfortunately, the target has never been achieved and from here in my opinion, the importance of the presence of the Acceleration Task Force originating from across ministries, because this Task Force will later carry out the task of assisting the Minister of Communication and Information Budi Arie to be able to pursue the recovery of the 4G BTS project in less than 1.5 years," said Anthony.

In addition, the Minister of Communication and Information Budi, said that Anthony must not forget the realization of the target of the Satria 1 Satellite launch, where it should be able to provide internet services in hundreds of thousands of Indonesian public facilities that are not reached by fiber optics.

"Moreover, the Satellite Hot Backup (HBS) is currently in a recovery effort so I see that the Satria 1 Satellite should have functioned according to the target before HBS was flown later," said Anthony.

Others, the Minister of Communication and Information Budi Arie must complete the National Data Center project which was built in 2022 and should have been completed in 2024.

"Menkominfo Budi must ensure that this project will indeed be able to become a center for data consolidation that comes from tens of thousands of servers in Indonesia in order to pursue the realization of the One Data Indonesia target in the context of e-government in Indonesia," said Anthony.

Personal data protection is also a big homework for the Minister of Communication and Information Budi. Because data leaks due to hacker attacks have occurred several times in various state institutions, which then the data is often sold on the dark web or forums, which means that the data can be used by irresponsible people later," said Anthony.

"Moreover, recently hundreds of millions of data from Dukcapil are claimed to be sold at the BreachForums forum. It is time for Kominfo with the new captain to take the issue of personal data protection seriously by accelerating the realization of the implementation of Law Number 27 of 2022 concerning Personal Data Protection," he added.

Finally, what must not be missed is the integration of the Palapa Ring. The project is a continuation of the Palapa Ring Project with an investment figure of IDR 8.6 trillion.

"I hope that the new Minister of Communication and Information will be able to show that this project can indeed accelerate the digital economy while at the same time encouraging equal distribution of digital transformation, especially in remote areas," concluded Anthony.