STRENGTHEN OF COMMUNITY AND SATELLITE COMMUNICATION
The Internet poses big problems for established institutions. It's as though
someone had nurtured an alien child who's now causing trouble for everyone
because the old Earth rules don't apply [Charles Petrie, Stanford Center
for Design Research].
Digital Revolution
Pramad Mahajan, Minister of Information Technology of India, had
spoken at a session at IITELMIT2000 lately in Indonesia that IT is
a 'rising star' in 21st century. He said that IT is a fourth method for
human to communicate. Before this, they were usually doing it using gesture,
spoken language and a certain other language. It's a reality now, that
we are all going through and involving with this 4th method of communication.
Most people now, since the invention of phone by Alexander Graham Bell
in 20th century, we are getting more and more depending on digital communication
to exchange information although we are miles away from each others. Now,
almost all kinds of information can be sent with this method, without significant
error/degradation. This phenomena is what Mahajan calls as digital language.
People are getting familiar with this technology. In America for example,
more than a quarter of the families are having computers, even their kids
are already using it for playing games, doing homework, communicating,
arts, musics, references, and other various applications through the internet.
And world community are heading for e-business (another way to say 'doing
business using internet') or e-commerce [Tapscott]. It's not just a monopoly
by 1st world country, most of Asian countries have become so exciting to
face this revolution. China, for example, has already 9 million internet
users and for Korea, the quantity is about 10 million.
Internet also makes another revolution to the way of life of the community.
It changes our behavior in communicating, which is now more involving on
interactivity and dominated by exchange of data in the form of text, symbols,
voices and graphics or usually called Multimedia. But don't forget about
one big potential of the internet: providing the 'web' for the the intellectual.
Imagine that a lot of cyber groups, comprising professionals with their
competence, experiences and knowledge, can be formed. And more creativity
are created, the creativity that we never imagine before. This things happen
to India. Their software engineer has joined their friends in other countries,
produced a top software products. The software export from India in 1999
is about $3 billion, while in 1996 is just $600 million. With internet,
it is possible to have international collaboration among cyber groups that
have value as much as millions of dollars and this euphoria is continuing.
This revolution also has its influence in Indonesia, and of course,
Indonesia can use this digital technology to strengthen the economy. Trading,
business, education, natural resources management, environment, etc., all
of them can be carried out borderless, by cyber. And at the time, when
networked intelligence is happening, involving all Indonesian professionals,
joining others in all over the world, giving their innovation and contribution.
The time when contribution of small companies and big companies can be
a lot more than now. The time when capital is changed by knowledge. But,
anyhow, can we get this opportunity?
Backbone of Internet: Satellite
Like all living creatures, IT is only the 'soul'. IT cannot 'live' unless
it gets the 'body'. IT uses telecommunication as the body to build network
among entities, among intelligence, among humans. IT performance depends
on the performance of telecommunication, especially if we look at the users
that use telephone line for their access. There is a big difference between
telephone line traffic characteristics compare to internet traffic characteristics.
Telephone traffic has 0.08 erlang at average, and internet has 1 erlang.
Every additional of 10% of internet traffic (IP Traffic), will make call
loss about 50% of previous loss. And this is dangerous for telecommunication
performance. This calculation indicates that we need a 'main road' for
internet traffic so that it will not make any congestion to the present
telephone line. One of the ways is by-passing the access networking, local
central, supporting central and all other hierarchical structure above
it. It will need to make backbone network for IP Traffic, especially if
we remember that the information needs faster speed (above 384 kbps), e.g.
multimedia information. Access network with speed that high can only be
afforded using copper wire, fiber optic, or satellite. Digital access using
copper wire needs additional device such as ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber
Line) to make upstream connection with 16 kbps or 64 kbps, with downstream
1.5 Mbps, 3 Mbps or 6 Mbps. There is also additional investment, which
is a Remote Access Switch (RAS), for building Internet by-pass Network.
[Jhunjhunwala]. But in reality, in PSTN network, rented circuit or even
a trunk transmission to ISP router. And for fiber optic, it needs fiber
to the curb and connected to distribution network to customer with 10 Mbps
or 30 Mbps speed, depending on what modulation methods is used. And
as mentioned before that copper wire and ADSL is forced to be used by using
rented circuit that comprise of coaxial cable and of course, Remoter Access
Switch that is needed to be invested by operator side (PT. Telkom). Radio
network with high speed is also possibly used, using its fixed wireless
technology or mobile wireless technology, with a risk of additional investment
such as RAS. And to make the traffic's performance good, there should be
a special line/network for data. And to cover all area in Indonesia, there
will be a big investment to choose this alternative, and that's why the
realization should be one step at a time.
Another by-pass method is by satellite using VSAT network. This solution
provides easiness such as: a) high speed access b) straight access
to ISP with almost 100 % reliability c) placement area can be anywhere
within satellite cover d) no congestion to PSTN communication network.
But there is a weakness of it, which is the limitation of throughput
because of geostationer satellite propagation delay. And now, various link
protocol techniques is developed to suppress this problem. One of them
is Forward Error Correction which will lessen the possibility of re-transmission.
For tropical area like Indonesia, it is very good if low frequency like
C Band is used as many as possible for satellite communication, because
rain will not make any influence to VSAT performance and overhead in satellite
transmission will not be spend to handle errors. And with this, a lighter
solution like ARQ or Hybrid ARQ can be used. Compare to other by-pass methods,
this method is very appropriate alternative. The previous system like Telkom-1,
Palapa C, Garuda and Indostar, all of them at least have covered Indonesia
and all of them have spectrum in low frequency (S, C) which is very suitable
for satellite communication, and can be used by us to develop an IP Network
Backbone.
Open Sky Regulation
While waiting for the next progress, satellite network in Indonesia at
least can provide short term and long term solutions, intelligently,
for internet by-pass network. We can build VSAT in all over this
country, which will have a function as an end terminal for internet customers
with high speed access. Several hub stations also can be build to serve
VSAT terminals, including billing system and network management. Assuming
that backbone for wide band network is provided and ISP stations have been
installed in access points of wide band network to transfer traffic bundle
out, especially to information center. SDH Network with high speed, such
as ring network of Nusantara-21, should be provided first to anticipate
the needs of internet by-pass network or to serve PSTN.
By now, internet is still US-Centric, because most of information
center come from there, and this cause problem for internet business because
rent cost for high speed network to US is expensive. There should be a
trigger to boost product innovation outside the US, so that market share
can be distributed to other companies, local or regional.
Internet Service business is a potential business if we can spend more
time on it. And it is a normal situation if regulators have given all efforts
to increase internet service to community. Internet service should be provided
with low cost to extend the benefits of cyber world to Indonesian people,
so that we will not be isolated, so that interdependency of cybertic
can have their place in this country. To make the internet service cost
lower, the communication cost have to be lower, and competition atmosphere
as stated in UU No 36 or other regulations concerning this matter, have
to be realized. All license cost for telecommunication business, ISP business,
spectrum frequency cost, administration cost have to be reduced or if possible:
no cost. Income for the government is taken from taxes that come from the
products produced by synergy, productivity and innovation that come from
the internet. The government of India for example, takes no cost for their
ISP license, because they want ISP industry will grow as many as possible
and of course the internet users. Indonesia should also use an 'open sky
policy' so that ISP or internet users can use any satellite to access internet
as long as in certain limitation. This kind of atmosphere will make the
cost of satellite access lower and of course will make internet access
cost lower and internet will become a 'friendly' world for the people of
Indonesia.
References
[Tapscott] : Don Tapscott, The Digital Economy: Promise and Peril
in the Age of Networked Intelligence, McGraw-Hill, 1996.
[Jhunjhunwala] : Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Bhaskar Ramamurthi, and Timothy A.
Gonsalves, The Role of Technology in Telecom Expansion in India, IEEE Communications
Magazine, November 1998 Vol. 36 No. 11.
Dr. Arifin Nugroho, IPM,: Expert staff for Technology at PT. Telkom and
the Chairman of The Indonesian Satellite Association
e-mail : arifin_nugroho@attglobal.net.
Translation by Wawan Setiawan (wsetiawan@elektroindonesia.com)