High Speed ​​Network Is Important for Research and Education

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A high-speed network is a necessity that must exist in Indonesia. According to the Minister of Communication and Information (Kominfo) Johnny G. Plate, high-speed networks are important for research and education activities.

Johnny in Nusa Dua, Bali, Wednesday (31/8) night, said, “During this interdependent and interconnected world, high-speed networks are very important to promote more advanced research and education activities.”

The need for a high-speed network, said Johnny, is accommodated in a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between Indonesia through Universitas Brawijaya (UB) and Indonesia Research and Education Network (IdREN) with Japan through the Arterial Research and Educational Network in the Asia Pacific (ARENA- PAC).

The collaboration agreed on the operation and development of a 100 Gbps network for research and education activities.

The ARENA-PAC network connects IdREN with UB as the gateway. The network will go through Guam to Tokyo and several other locations.

The presence of this network allows universities that have been connected to IdREN to exchange data more quickly with other research and educational institutions abroad.

Johnny said the signing of the MoU marked a new chapter in Indonesia’s research and education ecosystem that was more adaptive, innovative, and productive, especially through collaboration.

In this borderless era, Johnny views collaboration between countries as unavoidable and important for solving complex multi-disciplinary problems.

“The Ministry of Communication and Information of the Republic of Indonesia welcomes this initiative,” he said.

Johnny added that his party also welcomes more synergistic efforts to complement the government’s program in providing connectivity through the deployment of an equal and inclusive digital infrastructure throughout the country.

He also hopes that the network infrastructure can start its operational phase on time according to the initial target set in the fourth quarter of this year. In this way, infrastructure can further empower research facilities throughout Indonesia.

For information, the average internet speed in Indonesia is relatively low. The Speedtest Global Index report from Ookla reveals that Indonesia is ranked 117th (out of 182 countries) for fixed broadband internet download speeds, based on May 2022 data.

Although the speed of fixed broadband internet in Indonesia has increased in the past year from 17.37 Mbps (March 2021) to 21.23 Mbps (March 2022), Indonesia’s fixed broadband performance continues to lag behind other countries in Southeast Asia.

Quoting information on the Ookla page, Tuesday (5/7/2022), during 2021 in Southeast Asia, the gap in internet speed performance is quite large.

In this case, fixed-line internet speed in Indonesia is the slowest compared to Brunei and Laos. Both countries have internet speeds of almost 30 Mbps. Meanwhile, the average download speed is 20.08 Mbps.

Ookla uses data from Speedtest Intelligence to evaluate the performance of fixed broadband in Indonesia during the 3-4th quarter of 2021.

Switching to mobile internet speed, Indonesia also lags far behind Singapore et al. For mobile internet, Indonesia’s internet speed is ranked 105th out of a total of 141 countries.

Indonesia’s position even dropped 5 places from the previous report. The average download speed in Indonesia is 16.52 Mbps and the average upload speed is 9.90 Mbps with a latency of 28 ms.