One thing that has managed to bother me constantly is the access to internet in Indonesia, and now Jakarta. I’ve been going through all the internet plans but none of them have been particularly satisfying.

I am so damn irritated at the internet network, the internet at work blocks every freaking site I try to visit and logs everything, I can’t access facebook or Youtube, can’t skype, can’t update my windows update, I can’t download apps on my itunes, I can’t even download certain files sent to me via hotmail. Everything goes through the company’s damn proxy server and filters and blocks every bloody thing.

And just the other day I got locked out of the proxy and was annoyed as you might imagine. I can’t do anything at all, a pathetic major country with poor internet infrastructure and network. It’s my second week in Jakarta and still I don’t have internet access back in the apartment because I can’t find a good choice and SMART’s CDMA USB modems are out of stock.

Indonesia still has a very poor telecommunications infrastructure and virtually ubiquitous cable network providing high speed internet, all the operators are in fierce competition with virtually no collaboration. You can be in one part of Indonesia and have no reception at all if the operator does not have base stations in the area.

Although all the operators tout “unlimited” access, in fact that is a sham, depending on the data quota you are given you will be able to access the amount of data. Who the heck has a “data quota” on internet nowadays? MAX3 is the only land-line provider that I’ve come across using fiber-optic cable for a rated speed of 20Mbps but at the insane cost of 600,000rp per month. (S$84), and in Jakarta there is virtually no hard-line internet networks except for corporate and commercial establishments. There are literally no landlines to all the residential areas in Jakarta and most of the locals here use mobile USB modems to their laptops.



We went to a SMART outlet to buy an internet mobile modem, SMART was recommended and it made sense, because it’s the only provider without any data quota, “true unlimited” access. Turns out that I didn’t manage to get the last USB modem because another lady bought it before me, and in the end Widi suggested getting the SMART wireless router for 1,310 juta rp which comes with free unlimited access for 6 whole months!

It’s was very reasonable and now at least they are now enjoying the internet access. Mobile Broadband on SMART access speed downloads reaches 3.1 Mbps and upload speeds up to 1.8 Mbps. Most Indonesian operators use GSM, but I found out that SMART uses CDMA: they are slightly cheaper, but generally not usable outside major cities, but it worked fine and they had no complaints.



Then I went about scouting other potential providers for mobile internet, the problem is that prices vary considerably amongst the providers; the cost is crazy and connectivity is not guaranteed depending on reception in the area. Even though there are free hotspots in certain shopping malls, they are extremely slow as well and not suitable for surfing at all, (at best data-smsing on a smart phone or a tablet device), but not sufficiently fast enough to download programs or stream data or video.

To make matters worse, all of the providers have weird and non-consistent plans that make it ridiculous and difficult to compare them against each other. Telkomsel’s Flash cost 60,000rp for 100mb quota. (100mb?? That’s ridiculous.) IndoSAT’s IM2 has a 250mb quota, IM2’s broom has a 5gb quota, “3” has a 1Gb/month quota for 3 months, XL’s package is 99,000rp for 1 entire day,

Telkomsel’s kartuHALO is only available for post-paid customers, even then there’s data quotas, the cheapest basic plan costs 125.000rp for 1Gb data at 1Mbps (wtf slow), the “Advance” plan costs 225.000rp with a max speed of 7.2 Mbps for a data quota of 2 GB, and the pro plan costs 400.000rp at 7.2 Mbps for only 4 GB of data (Who-The-F*** uses only 4Gb of data for a whole month??) TelKomSel’s Prepaid SimPATI plan is even more pathetic. Rp 5,000 max. 384 kbps, 15 MB data for 1 day, Rp 50,000 max. 384 kbps 200 MB data for 14 days, Rp 100,000 max. 384 kbps, 500 MB data for 30 days and Rp 200,000 max. 512 kbps, 1.5 GB data for 30 days.

Let’s look at Singtel’s plans where the monthly allocated data usage is 50GB for all the mobile plans! The youth plan goes for $29/month (1.5Mbps/384kbps), the 2Mbps plan costs $37 (2Mbps/512kbps), and the (7.2Mbps plan/1.5Mbps) plan goes for $69/month, not mentioning the best plan (14.4Mbps/1.5Mbps) at $83/month. Starhub’s mobile Broadband - MaxMobile Elite plan is unlimited with download speeds of up to 21Mbps at $118.00 per month.

So the best option so far is SMART's 6-month unlimited USB modem for 948,000rp, but it's still out of stock as of today, and I was seriously tempted to get Telkomsel’s Flash for 599,000rp, and didn’t get my SMART modem in the end and hopefully there will be stock soon. If there is no stock by tomorrow, I will probably go and get the Telkomsel’s flash modem instead, hopefully it’s a true unlimited plan too.