ABSTRACT

MANALU, SANGGUL ROULI. The Politics of Infrastructure: the Heterogeneity of Actor- Network and the Power Mechanisms in Governing Telecommunication Infrastructure in Indonesia (Under the direction of Dr. Steve Wiley).

This dissertation investigates the mechanisms of power that played out in the development of telecommunication infrastructure, particularly Internet infrastructure, in

Indonesia. I argue that the mechanisms of power can be identified through a close examination of the actions of the relevant actors and the associations that those actors formed in changing, displacing, and translating the actions and the positions of other actors in the course of the effort to build and to develop infrastructure. I conceptualize power in a performative sense; in the ways in which it is exercised through certain actions to modify other actions. Hence, I identify power mechanisms in the ways a particular actor defines a particular situation according to its own understanding and then persuades or imposes that understanding on other actors, with the goal of displacing and translating those actors

(Latour, 2005; Law, 1992, Callon, 1986). I, then, extend the analysis of power mechanisms through the identification of modes of governing (Foucault 2007, 2008 of telecommunication infrastructure as a way of governing the population and governing the territory. I argue that the development of telecommunication infrastructure is part of the governing strategy and at times it is functioned as governing apparatus to define the relation of power, to produce knowledge, and to produce subjectification.

In this project, I am focusing my attention on three specific case studies of the endeavor to develop telecommunication infrastructure. Those case studies are; (1) the endeavor to connect the archipelago with fiber-optic cable infrastructure, named as the Palapa Ring; (2) the early adoption of 4G/ LTE in the mobile telecommunication industry; and (3) the endeavor to provide telecommunication access in rural and under-served areas through universal service program. To put these three case studies in a broader historical context, I present a background chapter of the development of telecommunication infrastructure in Indonesia. The historical account showed that present-day infrastructure is a continuation of the actions and associations of networks of actors in the past. Understanding circumstances in the past would help to better understand the conditions of possibility of the current infrastructure development.

In each of the three case studies I propose a number of main and important arguments. I argue that the Palapa Ring is a hybrid, or quasi-object, or quasi-subject (Latour,

1993), an entity that constitutes the blend of social elements and technical elements. It means the Palapa Ring is not only understood as the technological entities that connects and channels the communication throughout the archipelagic territory, but also as cultural and social discourse that has references to national identity, unity, territorial security and integration, economic development and progress, and capacity to compete in global network.

I argue LTE adoption was an instance of the upgrading and reskilling of nonhuman actors in assisting the activities of their human counterparts. I also argue that in the adoption of LTE technology in Indonesia was an instance of heterogeneous engineering where the system building is combining the assemblage heterogeneous actors, which combines the prescription of technology, the prescription of regulation, and a process of translations and resistances in the network of actors. Lastly, I argue the universal service framework was driven by the governmental rationality of neoliberalism, where access to ICT was seen as an investment to increase human capital. Through the provision of equal access to ICT in rural and underserved population, it was hoped that the rural and underserved population would take the technology into their hands to enhance their skills and equip themselves to be individual- unit enterprises contributing to a robust economy at the level of society.

© Copyright 2016 Sanggul Rouli Manalu All Rights Reserved The Politics of Infrastructure: the Heterogeneity of Actor-Network and the Power Mechanisms in Governing Telecommunication Infrastructure in Indonesia

by Sanggul Rouli Manalu

A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media

Raleigh, North Carolina 2016

APPROVED BY:

______Stephen B. Wiley Jason Swarts Committee Chair

______Jeremy Packer Nicholas Taylor

DEDICATION

To my dad and my mom,

Halomoan Manalu and Elyma Pardede

ii

BIOGRAPHY

Sanggul Rouli Manalu was born in Doloksanggul, North Sumatera, Indonesia in

1982. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies at Diponegoro

University in Semarang, Indonesia, in 2004. After working as an instructor (lecturer) at the

Communication Department in Diponegoro University for several years, she had the opportunity to pursue her master degree in Australia with the scholarship from the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) of Indonesia. She obtained her degree of Master of Communication Studies from The University of Western Australia in

2009. She then had another opportunity to pursue her doctoral degree with the support from the Fulbright Scholarship at the Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media, at North

Carolina State University. Upon the completion of her doctoral degree, she will return to

Diponegoro University and resume her position as a faculty member.

Rouli’s research has been revolved around critical analysis of media, communication, politics, and power. While in her undergraduate her interest largely focused more on conventional media, such as print media and television, in her master program she started to focus on the use of digital media and the Internet. In her doctoral program she broadens her interest not only to focus on the use of digital media by the end-users but also to critically analyze the aspect of technology and infrastructure building as well as policy- making in governing communication technology. Rouli has presented some of her works at several international scholarly forums, such as the annual conference of Association of

Internet Researcher (AoIR), biennial conference of the Asian Studies Association of

Australia, (ASAA), and annual conference of the Indonesia International Forum (IIF).

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This dissertation is the product of my five-years intellectual endeavor in my doctoral program. It reflects the knowledge that I have acquired during my doctoral courses and during the dissertation independent project. I would like to thank my dissertation advisory committee who have been the great influence to shape this research, and more importantly, to shape my perspective as a scholar and a researcher. I would like to thank my

Chair of advisors, Dr. Steve Wiley, for his generous support, insightful advice, and his constant encouragement, not only during the process of writing and finishing this dissertation, but also from my first semester until the end of my program in CRDM. His teaching in a number of courses during my early phase in the program, and his guidance during my dissertation research have helped shaping my insight as a researcher, particularly in the area of media theory, communication technology studies, as well as advanced and post-human approaches in conducting qualitative research in communication. He also inspires me to be a caring and compassionate teacher who willing to listen and to accommodate students’ point of views as well as to understand other non-academic matters.

I would also like to thank the members of my advisory committee; Dr. Jason

Swarts, from whom I first learned about ANT perspective and who guided me to apply this perspective in a number of smaller projects; Dr. Jeremy Packer, one of the leading scholars in

Foucault theory and Foucaldian media research, from whom I learned a better understanding of Foucault perspective and who directed me to the various applications of Foucaldian media research; and Dr. Nick Taylor, with whom I engaged in a number of discussions about

iv

advanced qualitative method in communication research. I am so grateful for their insightful advice that helped to make this research has a better outcome, as I am also grateful for their kindness in every stage of my research.

During my field research for data collection in Indonesia, I have encountered a number of generous people who were willing to share information and their ideas that are important to my research. I would particularly thank Dr. Denny Setiawan, Kasubdit Dinas

Tetap dan Bergerak Darat (DTBD) at the Ministry of Communication and Information

Technology (MCIT) for being the gatekeeper who gave me the opportunity and the access to do my site observation at the office of the MCIT at Jalan Budi Kemulyaan, Jakarta.

Numerous times he also has pointed the important directions in finding the essential sources of information for this research. I also would like to thank a number of people who were willingly provide opportunities to have interview with me; Ibu Mira Tayyiba from the

Ministry of National Planning (Bappenas); Bapak Setyanto P. Santosa from MASTEL;

Bapak Marvel Situmorang, Kasubdit Kewajiban Pelayanan Universal at the MCIT; Bapak

Anang Latief, Kasubdit Pengembangan Infrastruktur Direktorat PPI at the MCIT; Ibu

Kusmarihati Sugondo, the Commissioner at BP3TI; Bapak Marwan O. Baasir, the Vice

President of Regulatory and Government Relation at XL-Axiata; Bapak Ronny from

Regulatory Division at Telkomsel; Bapak Tatok Anunta from Telkom Indonesia; Bapak

Johnny Swandy Sjam from KADIN Indonesia; Mas Donny Ismanto Darwin, the Editor-in- chief at Indotelko.com; and Mr. Scott Minehane, the World Bank consultant at the office of

MCIT. I would also like to thank a number of my research informants who preferred to be anonymous. Although their names are not mentioned in this acknowledgement, it does not

v

lessen my gratitude for their generous helps.

I would also like to thank the people at the Communication Department,

Diponegoro University, in Indonesia, for their endless supports during my study leave in

North Carolina. I would particularly thank the Dean of the Faculty of Social and Political

Sciences, Diponegoro University, Dr. Sunarto, who always provides encouragement to finish my doctoral program.

I would like to thank Fulbright Foundation, AMINEF - the Binational Fulbright

Commission in Jakarta, and Indonesian Directorate of Higher Education (DIKTI) that supported the funding for my doctoral program. I would also like to thank USINDO (The

United State – Indonesia Society) for the travel grant to conduct my fieldwork in Indonesia.

Many thanks must also go to my all my friends during my time in Raleigh. The members of the “cool cohort” in CRDM; Samara, Johanne, Elizabeth, Brent, Danny, Chris,

Jamie, and Kris Bell. I feel so lucky to be a part of this cohort. And special thanks must go to

Samara for the friendship, and for sharing a lot of comical stories about “American way” that help me laugh on my anxieties during graduate school. And thanks for the “Samarabus” that has played a big part in accommodating my mobility during my time in Raleigh.

I am also indebted to many people in the Wolfpack PERMIAS community; thank you for all your supports during this journey. A special mention must go to Rini and Sekar, the brilliant and the strong PhD women of Indo-Wolfpack community. I am so glad that I can do this journey with both of you; sharing our happy and challenging moments together has made the time in graduate school more bearable. I would also thank Debbie, Elvin, Donny,

Yane, Christy, Randy, Qoni, Pambudi family (Sigit, Ilma, Adrian), Wibowo family (Bagus,

vi

Rasi, Ina, Salma), and all my friends in Wolfpack PERMIAS.

Special thanks must go to Susan Abed and family. I could never thank you enough for all the things that you have been done for me. Thank you for being my constant comfort and for being the place where I can share my stories and my thoughts. It is an amazing blessing to able to meet and to know you, and I will always remember you and your family even when I am thousand miles away from Raleigh.

In the spirit of acknowledging the non-human agency throughout the course of my doctoral endeavor, I would like to mention NC State library online system, D.H. Hill library, J.B. Hunt library, and my MacBook Pro computer that have provided enormous and indispensable supports.

Last but not least, I would like to thank my big family; my dad and my mom, my sisters and my brothers, my brother-in-laws, my nieces, and my nephews. I am looking forward to be back and to spend our great time together in Indonesia.

Thank you all, I simply could not have done this without you.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES ...... x LIST OF TABLE ...... xi CHAPTER 1 Introduction ...... 1 1.1. The study of communication infrastructure as a way to understand power in society .. 12 1.2. The Agency of Technical Entities: The Actor-Network Perspective in the Study of Infrastructure ...... 22 1.3. Governmentality: the modes of governing telecommunication infrastructure ...... 29 1.4. Data and Method ...... 42 1.5. The organization of the dissertation ...... 51

CHAPTER 2 The Telecommunication Landscape in Indonesia: From the Great Mail Road to the Liberation of Telecommunication Sector 2.1. Introduction ...... 56 2.2. The Great Mail Road: the foundation of communication infrastructure ...... 60 2.3. The beginning of telegraphy and telephony era ...... 71 2.4. Telecommunication governing in early independence ...... 77 2.5. The political constellation and the governing of telecommunication sector after Indonesian independence ...... 83 2.6. The First Movements toward Telecommunication Deregulation ...... 96 2.7. The Second Movement for More Liberalized Telecommunication Sector ...... 107 The network of GATS/WTO in the liberalization of the international telecommunication market ...... 109 The formation and enactment of the new Telecommunication Law of 1999 ...... 112 2.8. Conclusion ...... 119

CHAPTER 3 The Agency of the Palapa Ring as a Hybrid: the Fusion of Discourse with the Affordances of Technical Objects 3.1. Introduction ...... 125 3.2. The Indonesian Broadband Plan: Achieving Social and Economic Advancements through Technology ...... 131 3.3. From the Palapa Oath, to the Palapa Satellite, to the Palapa Ring: The Genesis of a Hybrid ...... 138 a. The History of Palapa Oath of Majapahit ...... 138 b. The Palapa Satelite and the genesis of the hybrid ...... 144 c. The Palapa Ring as the next generation of hybrid ...... 149

viii

3.4. From Nusantara-21 to Palapa Ring: the Mutation and Multiplication of Palapa Ring Identity ...... 152 3.5. The Palapa Ring in the Indonesia Broadband Plan: the Future of the Palapa Ring ..... 164 3.6. Conclusion ...... 174

CHAPTER 4 The Adoption of 4G/ LTE Technology: the Action of Heterogeneous Engineers in the Adoption of Technological Innovation 4.1. Introduction ...... 178 4.2. The race to be the first and the fastest: the hype of 4G/ LTE in Indonesia mobile broadband market ...... 184 4.3. The inside of LTE technology: the inscription of efficiency and the prescription of modernizing technology ...... 192 4.4. The endeavor to achieve spectrum optimization: LTE adoption from the regulator’s point of view ...... 199 a. The Current Radio Spectrum Assignments for Telecommunication ...... 201 b. The Failure in the Attempt for Broadcasting Digital Switchover ...... 204 c. The Steps for LTE Adoption ...... 208 4.5. LTE Service for whom?: the response from industry regarding the LTE adoption .... 219 4.6. Conclusion ...... 229

CHAPTER 5 Universal Service Programs: the Aspiration to Provide Equality of Access in Rural and Underserved Areas 5.1. Introduction ...... 233 5.2. The origin of Universal Service: a tug-of-war between intervention and competition in telecommunication market...... 237 5.3. The Universal Service in Indonesia: the formation of regulatory framework ...... 249 5.4. The universal service programs: from basic telephone service to mobile telecenter .. 257 5.5. The Problems in the Universal Service program: service for whom? ...... 267 5.6. Redesigning of Universal Service programs: the future utilization of Universal Service funding ...... 276 5.7. Conclusion ...... 282

CHAPTER 6 Conclusion: From Hybrid, Heterogeneous Engineering, to the Endeavor for Equality of Telecommunication Services ...... 285 REFERENCES ...... 303 APPENDIX ...... 313

ix

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. The Great Mail Road built in the era of H.W. Daendels, the Dutch East Indies as Governor General in 1806-1811. 62 Figure 2. Railroad network in Java Island in the current time. It is the expansion of early routes of the Great Mail Road in the northern part of the island. 69 Figure 3. The map of railroad planning as stated in the Railways Strategic Plan 2015-2019 from the Directorate General of Railways (DGR) of the Ministry of Transportation. 71 Figure 4. The Palapa Ring backbone network as portrayed in the Indonesia Broadband Plan document (2014) 150 Figure 5. The PT Telkom’s Nusantara Highway project 161 Figure 6. Various marketing materials to promote 4G/ LTE technology from different operators 186 Figure 7. Evolution of the system architecture from GSM and UMTS to LTE 195 Figure 8. The spectrum allocations for mobile communication access in Indonesia 202 Figure 9. The spectrum diagram of digital switchover that expected to generate digital dividend 205 Figure 10. The spectrum reorganization of 1800 MHz band as a preparation in adopting LTE1800 213 Figure 11. The office of BP3TI in Jalan Rasuna Said, Jakarta 254 Figure 12. Basic telephony service under the Ringing Village program. 262 Figure 13. Sub-district Internet Service Center and Mobile Sub-district Internet Service Center 265 Figure 14. The sub-district Internet Service Center or telecenter (PLIK) in Sleman, Yogjakarta. 274

x

LIST OF TABLE

Table 1 The table of spectrum assignments for mobile cellular network 203

xi

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

It was a crowded weekend at the Ambassador shopping mall in the Casablanca area of Jakarta, one of the popular places to find various communication gadgets and electronic accessories in the heart of the city. Numerous stores offered deals to attract buyers to their diverse brands of smartphones, tablets, computers, and other gadgets. One of the potential buyers that day was a young girl, about 14, who seemed to be looking for a smartphone. She was accompanied by her parents and another girl who was probably her sister. She was looking around the display window when the shopkeeper approached her. When the shopkeeper understood that the girl was looking for a smartphone, she showed the girl an assortment of smartphones with various features. The shopkeeper seemed to be well aware of what a typical customer like this girl would seek, so she just highlighted some important features, such as which smartphone had the highest-pixel camera for both the front camera and back camera (the shopkeeper even said, “you can take a good selfie on this”); which one allowed the fastest photo- and video uploading to social media; which had the best quality video, etc. She even offered to help install a number of social media mobile applications, such as Instagram, Path, Twitter, Facebook, Whatsapp, and Line--all the most popular social media among teenagers in Indonesia--once the girl made her phone choice. When the girl asked her father’s opinion, he only said, “I don’t know. I don’t even understand all those things. I never use them. Hope you can make your choice soon so I know how much that I have to pay”.

*****

The room was a bit dark even in the middle of the day, since it depended on the natural light from the grimy windows. The ceiling was moldy and had a hole in it, while the floor was soiled and in need of cleaning. There was row of four computer units placed on dusty tables. Another computer unit, placed in a corner, was used as an operator computer. There were two empty booths in another corner of the room, which, as I later learned, used to be telephone booths (or in Indonesia called wartel or warung telepon) for public telephone calls. Now those spaces were unused, dark and filthy. This room was supposedly one of the internet centers (pusat layanan internet kecamatan - PLIK) in sub-region Sleman, in D.I. Jogjakarta. The service center is part of the government program in providing internet service to rural areas under the Universal Service Obligation (USO) funding scheme. No customers were using the service while I was there. Even the operator was gone and had left the operator computer desk empty. A young man came and helped me to log in and to start the internet service. The speed of the internet was reasonably fast when I tried it. The young man said that the service charge was Rp. 1500 (less than 2 cents USD) per hour. When I

1

asked about other visitors, he said that fewer and fewer people came to use the internet center nowadays. Most of the visitors were teenagers who came to play online games. He was reluctant to answer more questions, explaining,, “I’m only helping temporarily here. If you want to know more about this place you can come later in the afternoon to meet the person in charge. But I am not sure if he will come today. Some times he comes, but not always”. *****

These are two contrasting sceneries of the Internet landscape I experienced in

Indonesia during my fieldwork in 2014 - 2015. While there seems to be rapid adoption of mobile Internet devices in urban areas, as seen through the sale of diverse communication gadgets in the Jakarta shopping mall, the situation is completely different at the Internet service centers that supposedly serve population in rural areas. The community Internet center I described is underutilized, under-maintained, and left in a pitiful state.

Statistical data also illustrate these contrasting situations. The young girl in the story above is part of the age group of the most active Internet users in the country. A survey from the Association of Indonesian Internet Providers (APJII) published in 2014 showed that almost half of the Internet users in the country are under 25 years old.1 The majority of them use Internet services primarily to engage with their peers through social media. Media reports indicate that the number of Twitter users in the country has reached 50 million2, and an

1 APJII & PUSKAKOM UI (2014), Profil Pengguna Internet Indonesia 2014 2 CNN Indonesia (2015), Jumlah pengguna Twitter di Indonesia akhirnya terungkap, http://www.cnnindonesia.com/teknologi/20150326141025-185-42076/jumlah-pengguna-twitter-di-indonesia- akhirnya2 CNN Indonesia-terungkap/ (2015), Jumlah pengguna Twitter di Indonesia akhirnya terungkap, http://www.cnnindonesia.com/teknologi/201503261410253 Victor Lipman (2012), The World's Most Active Twitter City?-185- 42076/jumlahYou Won't Guess-pengguna It -twitter-di-indonesia- akhirnya-terungkap/

2

article in Forbes magazine recognized Jakarta as one of the most active Twitter cities in

2012.3 Citing a study from Paris-based research firm, Semiocast, the article not only mentions Jakarta; there was also another city in Indonesia, Bandung (a capital city of West

Java), that was ranked sixth globally, ahead of Paris and Los Angeles. Aside of Twitter,

Facebook is still the most popular social media platform, reaching even the older population, with the number of Indonesian users around 72 million.4 It seems that social media dominate

Internet use, more than any other online activities. There is even a popular saying (according to one of informant in this research) that many Indonesians are having exceptionally active

Facebook or Twitter account but they rarely use their email (or have it just to make a

Facebook or Twitter account).

If we look at the situation of the country as a whole, however, other data tell quite a different story. According to data from the International Telecommunications Union

(ITU), from 2000 to 2014 the number of Internet users in Indonesia only increased from 0.93 percent to 17.14 percent of the population.5 This means that less than a quarter of the population had access to the Internet as of 2014, well behind the percentages of Internet users in neighboring countries such Singapore and Malaysia, with 82% and 67%, respectively.6

3 Victor Lipman (2012), The World's Most Active Twitter City? You Won't Guess It http://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2012/12/30/the-worlds-most-active-twitter-city-you-wont-guess-it/2/ 4 Infokomputer (2015), Pengguna Facebook di Indonesia menjadi trendsetter di Asia Pasifik, http://www.infokomputer.com/2015/04/berita/berita-reguler/pengguna-facebook-di-indonesia-jadi-trendsetter- di-asia-pasifik/ 5 International Telecommunication Union (2014), Percentage of Individual Using Internet, http://www.itu.int/en/ITU- D/Statistics/Pages/stat/default.aspx?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter.co.jp. The ITU data are sourced from data provided by Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Information. 6 Ibid

3

Echoing this report, from the point of view of infrastructure, the Indonesian government’s

National Broadband Plan (2014) mentions that only 69.6% districts (kabupaten/kota) have been equipped or reached by the Internet backbone infrastructure development as of 2012.7

Although this number seems relatively high, many of those districts are located in the western parts of the country, while many districts in the eastern parts of the country still have limited infrastructure.

These statistics present an interesting, albeit incomplete, picture of the Internet infrastructure in Indonesia. We can get a glimpse of the problem of the disparity and gaps in the availability of telecommunication access to the population. As the above statistics suggest, while the number of Internet users year has grown during the past 14 years, only a relatively small percentage of the population can get access to the Internet, which can be discerned through the low Internet penetration. Furthermore, while there are indicators suggesting that mobile broadband use is relatively high, there is an unevenness in infrastructure construction in different parts of the country. As the two opening scenes suggest, there are complex circumstances regarding the Internet landscape in Indonesia. This research looks closely at the situation on the ground, beyond the statistical data, by focusing on several specific cases of Internet infrastructure development in the country. This is not to say that statistical data are irrelevant, but other forms of knowledge about the Indonesian

Internet landscape are needed if we are to fully understand the situation. While discrepancies and gaps in Internet access serve as a starting point, the objective of this research is to go

7 National Broadband Plan document (2014)

4

beyond these issues to examine the dynamics of power negotiations among actors involved in developing the Internet infrastructure and to identify the rationalities behind the governing of infrastructure development. The broad research questions I address are: 1) Who are the actors

(human and nonhuman) involved in developing telecommunication infrastructure for Internet access and service? 2) How do those actors build associations with each other, and what kind of power negotiations play out in those associations? 3) What forms of rationality have characterized the governance of Indonesian Internet infrastructure?

In analyzing the complexity of the Indonesian Internet landscape, I am focusing my attention on the building and development of infrastructure rather than on users’ adoption or utilization of the Internet. By focusing on the infrastructure development, we will be able to make sense of the conditions of possibility and the circumstances that have led to disparities and gaps in the Internet access and understand the politics behind those circumstances. Thus, the term “Internet” that I use in this research does not refer to the world-wide-web, or to online forums, emails, social media, or other forms of Internet applications. Rather, by the Internet I mean the physical infrastructure that delivers Internet access to users--namely, fiber-optic backbone infrastructure, mobile broadband infrastructure, and Internet service centers in rural areas. Tied to this notion, I also focus my attention on the actors involved in constructing, developing, and regulating Internet infrastructure --such as telecommunication companies, regulatory bodies, governing agencies, etc.--rather than Internet users and their practices. Furthermore, by tracing the history and the continuity of infrastructure development as well as the network of actors

5

involved in its construction, I argue that Internet infrastructure development must be understood as a continuation of previous communication infrastructure, such as the development of road infrastructures, the telegraph, and telephone system. Throughout this dissertation, I will use the term “telecommunication infrastructure” to refer to Internet infrastructure as an element within this broader technical telecommunication landscape.

In addition to this focus on infrastructure development, I examine the power mechanisms or the political aspects of infrastructure building. By politics I mean the ways in which relations of power emerge, are distributed, and utilized among various actors who contribute to, are involved in, are responsible for, or have authority in the building of Internet infrastructure—both human and nonhuman actors. This research views power not only as resting in the hands of human subjects, but also in the capacities of nonhuman objects. Using the conceptualization of “agency” from Actor Network Theory (ANT), I emphasize the symmetrical capacities of human and nonhuman entities in doing something, in making differences and interventions, as well as in transforming the state of affairs (Latour, 2005).

For ANT, agency is never located in the human body alone. Agency also belongs to microbes

(Latour, 1993), to bush pumps (de Laet & Mol, 2000), to electric cars (Callon, 1980), to seatbelts (Latour, 1992), to key holders (Latour, 1991), or even to scallop (Callon, 1986), if those things can produce a transformation in a state of affairs in society.

This approach allows us to recognize, for example, the ways in which the fiber- optic network of the Internet backbone has the agency to bring economic development and

6

welfare to the population. Or in the way in which the technical architecture of the 4G/ LTE not only changed existing mobile broadband technology but also changed the governance of radio spectrum allocations for mobile broadband. Furthermore, by tracing the dynamics of infrastructure development, I see that power negotiations involve not only the actors in

Internet industry or telecommunication sector, but also a wide array of different actors in

Indonesian history, located apparently far from the telecommunication sector. To understand the development of Indonesian Internet infrastructure, we must consider the role of actors from the colonial powers prior to national independence, as well as the post-colonial regimes or authorities who held power in different times and eras in the country.

Infrastructural development also involved actors from different parts of state government and a number of international or transnational organizations and forums, such as the ITU (International Telecommunication Union), the WTO (World Trade Organization), and the WSIS (World Summit of Information Society). One case study in this research shows, for example, the way the contemporary Internet backbone infrastructure built on an early nationalist concept, the “Palapa Ring,” to position the Internet backbone as a fundamental means to tie the country together. In another case study, I show how international organizations such as the WTO have had a strong influence in determining the trajectory and the governing rationality shaping Indonesian telecommunication industry. The investigation of power mechanisms in Indonesian Internet development reveals the network of heterogeneous actors shaping that infrastructure, including the agency of nonhuman

7

entities, the power of state authorities, the power of industrial and market players, and the influence of transnational organizations.

The aim of this research, then, is to contribute to the academic conversation regarding the relations between the Internet, society, and politics by examining an empirical case of infrastructure development in the Indonesian context. While a number of previous studies have investigated on the relation between the Internet, society, and politics, the focus of that research was largely on the end- users and the use of the Internet for political purposes, such as political activism, social movements, or political participation in the public sphere. Those studies focused less on the ways in which Internet infrastructure was developed to provide access to the users in the first place (although some were briefly considered the aspect of infrastructure in the initial stage of the arrival of the Internet in the country). Research from Hill and Sen (2005), for example, examined the ways in which the

Internet played an important role in the dissemination of anti-regime ideology in opposition to the existing New Order regime that had been exercising authoritarian power for more than three decades. This anti-regime movement led to the downfall of the New Order regime in the late 1990s and brought the nation to the dawn of the Reform Era (Era Reformasi), an important milestone in the political history of Indonesia (Hill and Sen, 2005). Lim conducted several other notable studies that focused on the role of the Internet in political activism

(2006a, 2006b, 2009, 2011) as well as in ethnic and sectarian identity formations (2008).

Nugroho (2008, 2009, 2010) studied NGO’s uses of digital technology for civic engagements, and Purbo (2002, 2008, 2010) examined how groups of Internet-savvy users

8

employed their skills to challenge the established telecommunication industry and regulatory regime in order to gain access to telecommunication technologies—a phenomenon he termed

“geek activisms.”

I recognize the importance of these earlier findings and arguments, but I aim to contribute to the existing conversation from a slightly different angle. I will focus on the tracing of actors in the network of infrastructure development and the ways in which power negotiations and associations bring about (or are inscribed in) the specific infrastructural configurations of telecommunication. By the tracing of network of actors, I produce an account that identifies and defines a number of the actors that contribute to the development of infrastructure, and I develop an explanation of their actions in translating, displacing, and creating order in the network of the Indonesian telecommunication sector, particular in the network of Internet infrastructure development. Furthermore, by tracing and identifying the relevant actors and actions through the course of events, I offer an explanation of the fluidity of technological innovation as well as the fluidity of the movement of the discourses and regulations that passed from one actor’s hands to another in order to stabilize and perpetuate order in network. Hence, the explanation of the power mechanisms and the politics of infrastructure is woven through the description of actors and actions in the actor-network shaping infrastructural development.

In addition to examining the power mechanisms in the development of infrastructure, I offer an account of the governmentality (or rationality in governing) that shaped that process of development. I take the perspective on governmentality developed by

9

Foucault, for whom it is a method of exercising power, a type of power mechanism, and a changing logic shaping state administration (Foucault, 2009). I emphasize this governing action as one of the main aspects of the politics of Indonesian infrastructure. The Foucaldian framework of governmentality is helpful for understanding the governing actions that are taken through the formations of laws, regulations, institutions, and other governing apparatuses that stabilize order in the telecommunication sector. In sum, I use these two approaches, Actor Network Theory and Foucaldian governmentality, to map, identify, and explain the relations and negotiations among heterogeneous actors in infrastructure development as well as the logics that shaped the governance of Indonesian Internet infrastructure development, and more broadly in telecommunication infrastructure development. These two approaches will provide useful insights into the politics of communication infrastructure as a fundamental part of the functioning of society. Later in this chapter, I provide a more detailed explanation of the ways in which these two approaches complement each other in serving the purpose of this research.

This research is an investigation of the ways in which communication infrastructure developed in the context of a specific country, Indonesia. However, despite the specificities of the cases explored in this research and the specificities of the national context where the research was carried out, this study is not intended as either a historical study of telecommunication infrastructure, a study of telecommunication policy, or a technical study of the Internet in the Indonesian national context. Rather, this research is intended to contribute to the academic conversation in Communication Studies as an examination of the

10

ways in which the development of a technology we use as a medium of communication has broader implications for the power mechanisms operating in a society. It also aims to show that the power in social life is not solely in the hands of human subjects with human awareness and human intentions. Power also belongs to numerous material objects, which have the capacity to carry out specific functions and roles that make our day-to-day activities possible. Therefore, I argue that an examination of our communication landscape reveals the broader dynamics of power in society, as well as the ways that power is embodied through both the agency and affordances of communication technologies as non-human actors and the agency of human actors. Infrastructure, in turn, shapes the modes of communication available and the ways in which we communicate with each other, further shaping our society.

The remainder of this introductory chapter is divided into five sections. In the next section, I explain the rationale for positioning this research as a Communication

Research. In the following two sections, I provide an extended explanation about the two main analytical frameworks I used in this research, Actor Network Theory (ANT) and

Foucaldian governmentality. In the fourth section, I describe the methods I used to obtain and analyze the data for this study. And in the last section, I preview the overall structure of the dissertation and its chapters.

11

1.1. The study of communication infrastructure as a way to understand power in society

The present study is a contribution to communication research and to conversations about the relations between digital media, the Internet, society, and politics. I analyze communication technology development, focusing on the physical and discursive aspects tied to the development and construction of infrastructure. This emphasis on the role of material elements is influenced by an emerging research focus in the field of communication studies that is part of the “materiality turn” (Packer & Wiley, 2012). In this perspective, communication is understood not only as a transmission of messages between two communicators but as an assemblage of diverse elements such infrastructure, space, technology, body, and culture within a physical and corporeal landscape – any element that has capacity to bring people together and afford the transformation of social reality (Packer

& Wiley, 2012). I argue that research on the Internet as a power mechanism in society is limited when we focus only on message content, narratives, meaning, language, or representation, since there is discrepancy of access in the first place, as a consequence of inequalities of infrastructure, which shapes the capacities to contribute to content in the first place. Therefore, in this research I view communication as the assemblage of technology, discourses, institutional bodies, and regulatory practices that bring people together and maintain order in society through the mediation of communication technologies.

My definition of communication in this research is also influenced by Carey’s

(1989) argument about communication as culture. In Carey’s seminal work on the conceptualization of communication as culture, he proposed the idea that communication is

12

the activity that “draws people together in community” as well as “the construction an maintenance of an ordered, meaningful world” (p.15). To develop this argument, Carey contrasts two perspectives that shaped the study of communication in the US, which I see as still relevant in the contemporary study of communication. The first is the transmission view, which positions communication as the activities that “sending,” “transmitting,” or

“imparting” information (p. 12). The transmission view sees communication as “a process whereby messages are transmitted and distributed in space for the control of distance and people” (p. 13). Messages in this sense include knowledge, ideas, and information. Carey proposes an alternative perspective of communication, which he calls the ritual view. The ritual view sees communication as the activities that “sharing,” “participating,” and

“associating” and as “drawing people together in community” (p.15). In ritual view, communication is not only a matter of transmitting knowledge from one person or site to another; it also entails a whole range of activities that produce the conditions for shared experience. Hence, the ritual view understands communication as “symbolic process whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired, and transformed” (p.19)—a process shaped, in turn, by the ways in which technological infrastructures enable common or interdependent spaces and times.

The understanding of communication as culture or as activities that produce common experience, as I develop it in this research, is also based on Carey’s study of the telegraph (1989). For Carey, the telegraph became the fundamental element that “marked the decisive separation of “transportation” and “communication” (p. 164). Prior to the telegraph,

13

a message was embedded in the physical form of its medium and its carrier, as in the case of a letter transported by ship or rail. The movement of messages was also the geographical movement of the physical object that carried that message around. In this sense, communication was also transportation. The invention of the telegraph changed the nature of communication. As Carey put it, “[the telegraph] not only allowed messages to be separated from the physical movement of objects; it also allowed communication to control physical processes actively” (p. 157). He further contends, “[t]he telegraph…allowed symbols to move independently of and faster than transportation. The telegraph freed communication from the constraints of geography” (p.157). Following the invention of telegraphy, the transmission view of communication developed and began to focus on the non-material aspect of communication, leaving the material aspects out of the focus. This view then dominated the field communication studies until the ritual view came forward to revive the material aspect in communication (Carey, 1989).

The broader notion of communication can also be found in the work of Armand

Mattelart (1996), particularly in the book entitled The Invention of Communication. In this book, communication is seen from a wider viewpoint, “encompassing the multiple circuits of exchange and circulation of goods, people, and messages” (p. xiv). From this broader definition, it is clear that Mattelart abandoned the narrow understanding of communication as transmission of information and even took a step further by abandoning the “mediacentric perspective” in explaining the history of communication technology (Tympas, 1993, p. 695).

Using this boarder perspective enabled Mattelart to produce an account of the history of

14

communication that is not solely limited to communication practices or media practices, but also to investigate the connection of communication with “…the domestication of flows and of society in movement…” and “…the issues of the place occupied by communication in creation of a universal social bond…” and “…a genealogy of the geopolitical visions of communication” (p. xv). Finally, Mattelart connects the idea of communication with the history of normalization, “the emergence of an individual who can be calculated” (p. xv).

Mattelart’s historical investigation of communication, which linked the idea of communication with the production of social flows and the conceptualization place, space, and norms, as parallel to Carey’s notion of communication as culture.

Taking inspiration from Carey’s understanding of the contrasting views of communication as well as from Mattelart’s broader perspective in the investigation of history of communication, my research moves away from the transmission view of communication.

To emphasize once again, this research is not concern with the investigation of the ways in which circulation of messages on the Internet can be used to support political activism, civil society movements, social change movements, participation in public sphere, etc. Nor does it focus on how the Internet could afford a change in the nature of communication practices, or the role of language in those practices. Rather, its focus is on the ways in which communication, through the mediation of technology, brings heterogeneous actors into network of infrastructure development, as well as ways in which that process is also a practice of communication that produces, maintains, repairs, and transforms reality. The use of this understanding in investigating the politics of infrastructure in this research reveals a

15

broader mechanism of power beyond the action of communicating messages from one person or group to another. This broader understanding of communication allows me, in this research, to make a connection between the communication (and transportation) infrastructures and the broader context of Indonesian politics, such as the ways in which discursive and non-discursive elements surround communication technology shaping national territory, national development, population welfare, international orders and governance, etc.

This research also took inspirations from Carey’s argument regarding the ways in which the construction of the materiality of transportation and communication infrastructure was, at the same time, the production of a shared territory of in the form of national space

(2009). Carey proposed a question regarding the US national space by saying, “[h]ow was this continental nation to be held together, to function effectively, to avoid declension into faction or tyranny or chaos?” (p. 4), to which he responded, “the answer was sought in the word and the wheel, in transportation and transmission, in the power of printing and civil engineering to bind a vast distance and a large population into cultural unity…” (p. 4). As the development of the telegraph and railroad enabled the construction of a national US territory, Indonesian telecommunication infrastructure projects sought to build an Internet backbone infrastructure that would tie together the different parts of this archipelagic country, bringing unity and generating order and regularity in the governance of the population. I argue, therefore, that the investigation of the development of communication infrastructure reveals the wider social, economic, and political forces at work and illuminates

16

the broader network of power mechanisms operating in society beyond the communication domain.

Furthermore, by building on this broader understanding of communication via

Carey’s as well as Mattleart’s arguments, I am able to pay attention to the set of modes and logics that govern telecommunication infrastructure in relation to the governing of different forces in society. Carey’s ritual view showed that communication practices enable “the maintenance of society in time” (1989, p. 15) and facilitate the “construction and maintenance of an ordered, meaningful cultural world that can serve as a control and container for human action” (p. 15). In a similar fashion, Mattleart found that, in its “pursuit the ideal of reason,” communication had gone through the tension between emancipation and control, and between transparency and opacity (1996, p.xvi). Mattelart’s assertion that the history of communication involved “the diverse modalities taken by relations of interdependence tying people to each other, and the form of control of their emotions and their impulse required by the management of large multitudes” (p. xvi), echoes Carey’s notion of the ritual view of communication, which also describes communication as the site of contending forces. Following this line of arguments, I see the development communication infrastructure not only as an effort to build a conduit or channel for information transmission, but also as a site of the contending forces that aim to bring some kind of control to bear on society. Internet infrastructure is not a “neutral” entity that only function as a channel or pipe through which the content is distributed and re-distributed to generate political effects. To echo a well-known point made by Langdon Winner (1980), the artifact itself does have

17

politics. Infrastructure gains its politics through the inscription of power or interests of other actors in it. I want to further this reasoning by arguing that infrastructure itself has agency, and it is not only a site of the power struggles of actors outside itself. I argue that infrastructure itself has the capacity and agency to become a mediator that is able to

“transform, translate, distort, and modify the meaning or the elements they are supposed to carry” (Latour, 2005, p. 39). Hence, the development of communication infrastructure is a site of contending forces and power, but not only the power of diverse human actors. It is also a site of engagement for forces generated through the capacity of inanimate objects, or the agency of the infrastructure itself—a claim that I explore in detail in the next section.

It is important, therefore, to explain the conceptualization of power in this research. Drawing on a Foucauldian understanding of power, which I find consistent with the

ANT perspective, I view power in a performative sense, focusing on the way that it is exercised through certain actions to modify others. To refer to Foucault’s (1983) assertion,

“[p]ower exists only when it is put into action..” and “[power] acts upon their actions: an action upon an action, on existing actions or on those which may arise in the present or the future” (p. 340). Elsewhere, Foucault (2009) also stated, “power is not a substance, fluid, or something that derives from a particular source…[p]ower is not founded on itself or generated by itself…. there are not first of all relations of production and then, in addition, alongside or on top of these relations, mechanisms of power that modify or disturb them, or make them more consistent, coherent, or stable” (pp. 16-17). In short, mechanisms of power are inherent in, and generated through, the various types of relations and associations. And,

18

in order to grasp the way power works, we must examine the actions of any party that is involved in a particular relation as well as the ways each party attempts to change the actions of others in the relation. Power also plays out in a circular way, and it can be an effect as well as cause (Foucault, 1978).

This assertion is similar to the actor-network conception of power as an action that translates, transforms, or displaces other actors or their actions. As Law has argued,

“translation is a verb which implies transformation and the possibility of equivalence, the possibility of one thing may stand for another” (1992, p. 386). In addition, Callon (1968) helped us to understand the concept of translation by saying “[t]o translate is to displace” (p.

18). Elsewhere, Law (1986) also elaborated, “the notion of translation emphasizes the continuity of displacement and transformation… displacement of goal and interest, displacement of devices, human beings, larvae, and inscription” (p. 18). Hence, in the ANT perspective, power plays out in the ways a particular actor defines a particular situation according to its own understanding and then persuades other actors to have the same understanding, with the goal of eventually displacing and transforming those actors in whatever ways the first actor deems proper. To displace actors in the process of translation, then, means to persuade, or to interest, other actors in the network to do what the focal actor wants them to do. Therefore, the Foucauldian notion that power is performative, and is not a substance that derives from particular sources, is similar to the one in ANT perspective, as also shown in Latour’s (2005) argument: “it’s so important to maintain that power, like society, is the final result of a process and not a reservoir, a stock, or a capital that will

19

automatically provide an explanation. Power and domination have to be produced, made up, composed” (pp. 64-65). In a sense, to understand how power works, we must not presume to know where power is situated prior to the analysis; rather, we must identify power in the course of analysis. If power asymmetries and inequalities exist among different actors, we must determine where they come from and what are they made of through the investigation, and not assume there is asymmetry in the beginning before the investigation. This argument echoes Law (1992) assertion:

[if] we want to understand the mechanics of power and organization it is important

not to start out assuming whatever we wish to explain… it is good idea not to take it

for granted that there is macrosocial system on the one hand, and bits and pieces of

derivative microsocial system on the other. If we do this, we close most of the

interesting questions about the origin of power and organization (p. 380).

This ANT theorization of power in the study of technology (and science) is not without criticism. By focusing on how power plays out in the associations of heterogeneous actors and not making a priori assumption of where the power located, ANT has been criticized for inadequately addressing unequal distributions of power, for being indifferent to power struggles in the society, and for focusing on the hero and the powerful (see, e.g.,

Winner, 1993). Those working from and ANT perspective have responded to this criticism by pointing out that, if researcher assumes the inequality of power prior to the study, there is a risk that the research will simply repeat and reproduce the explanation or the narrative of power domination that comes from the capitalist mode of production, patriarchal culture, or

20

the cultural hegemony of ruling class. As Latour (2005) asserts, “…it is just because we wish to explain those asymmetries that we don’t want to simply repeat them—and even less to transport them further unmodified” (p. 63). He further contends,

[i]f there is no way to inspect and decompose the contents of social forces, if they

remain unexplained or overpowering, then there is not much that can be done. To

insist that behind all the various issues there exists the overarching presence of the

same system, the same empire, the same totality, has always struck me as an extreme

case of masochism, a perverted way to look for a sure defeat while enjoying the

bittersweet feeling of superior political correctness (p. 252).

Thus, it is important not to assume there is a power inequality prior to the investigation, but to uncover the inequality through the investigation.

This understanding of power in a Foucaldian and ANT sense allows me to identify the mechanisms of power in infrastructure building without assuming a priori that the power to determine the infrastructure configuration and development is in the hands of the state authority, in the capitalistic power of telecommunication companies, or under the control of international or transnational organizations. If, for example, the state authority indeed has the power to dictate the infrastructure development plan, I am interested in understanding how this power came about and how it has been enacted to compel or to coerce other actors to modify their action in a particular way. The application of this conception of power can be seen, for example, in my analysis of the ways in which

21

international organizations such as the WTO or ITU were able to shape national regulations.

I am not assuming ahead of time that global actors have power to exert influence on national policy. Rather, I am interested in tracing the origins of such influence and explaining how that influence is enacted to compel the changes in national policy. Thus, in this research, power, to emphasize once again, is seen as a set of actions upon other actions, which in

Foucaldian sense is identical to the term of “conduct,” to lead or to “govern” others to behave in a certain way (1983). For Foucault, power mechanisms are not a matter of conflict or confrontation between two opposing powers but rather a question of government, in a broader sense. Having explained the conceptual framework of communication and the conceptual framework of power used in this research, which is taken from both actor- network theory and Foucauldian perspective, in the next two sections I will explain the ways in which these two approaches contributes to this study.

1.2. The Agency of Technical Entities: The Actor-Network Perspective in the Study of Infrastructure

One of the distinguish contributions of ANT to the study of technology is its conception of the agency of nonhuman entities and their role in shaping the society. This approach helps to move the discussion beyond two common perspectives on the role of technology in society—one that emphasizes human subjectivity and the other that focuses solely on the agency of technology. The former, on one hand, views the role of technology in society merely from the standpoint of human perception or phenomenological experience, which places human subjectivity as the main focus in understanding human-technology relations. The latter, on the other hand, emphasizes the importance of technology for

22

maintaining social order and understands technology in a deterministic sense, where technology in itself is seen as affecting social structure.

Before delving deeper into the concept of technological agency, it is important to get a grasp on the ANT epistemological point of view and to understand the origin of the conception of “nonhuman agency.” As Latour argued in Reassembling the Social (2005), the concept of the nonhuman agency rooted in the dispute between two founding fathers of

Sociology as a discipline, Emile Durkheim and Gabriel Tarde. In this dispute, according to

Latour, Durkheim was “the winner” (p. 13), and his idea became the dominant understanding in contemporary Sociology. Durkheim viewed society as a unique domain that is produced through various individual interactions that fused together to create a new reality, or social phenomenon (Durkheim, 1897, cited in Vargas, et.al., 2008). This social phenomenon cannot be understood by reducing it to individual biological or psychological explanations, which

Durkheim claims would lead to false explanation (Durkheim, 1894, cited in Vargas, et.al.,

2008), but it has to be understood as a social relation taking place among different individuals. It is these various individual relations that generate “the social” or “social phenomena.” Durkheim further argued that, although social phenomena are produced by human actions, they are external to the individual because they are not produced by individual goals but through the collective undertakings. To understand social reality or social phenomena, one has to examine norms, laws, beliefs, statuses, roles, and institutions, which are some examples of the embodiments of social facts.

23

On the other hands, Tarde viewed the social as a principle of connection and not a special domain of reality. Tarde asserted,

[t]he elementary social fact is the communication or the modification of a state of

consciousness by the action of one human being upon another. [...] Not

everything that members of a society do is sociological. [...] To breathe, digest,

blink one's eyes, move one's legs automatically, look absently at the scenery, or

cry out inadvertently, there is nothing social about such acts. (Tarde, 1895, in

Vargas et.al., 2008, p. 763)

In Tarde’s Sociology, social phenomena also include other elements that are not necessarily

“social.” The social does not only involve humans, human interactions, and human behavior, and human actions; as Latour (2005) asserts, “…there was no reason to separate ‘the social’ from other associations like biological organisms or even atoms…’ (p. 13). Therefore, for

Tarde (and later also for Actor-Network Theory) there is no specific domain of reality that can be attributed solely to human relations while excluding other types of relations. There is no bundle of social ties or social aggregate that can be accepted a priori in understanding human actions and interactions (Latour, 2005). In Latour’s words, we must understand the social “not as a special domain, a specific realm, or particular sort of thing, but only as a very peculiar movement of re-association and reassembling” (p. 14). With this understanding of the social as a principle of connections, ANT portrays society as the constant movement of assembling and re-assembling heterogeneous entities in which the links or relations are

24

highly contingent and easily shifted, rather than a stabilized structure that holds different elements together.

The understanding of social phenomena or social facts as a principle of connection posits the symmetry between human and other forms of entities. Human agency is not placed as primary, and actors are not understood as being limited to human actors.

Therefore, in the present research, an actor is defined neither as the source of the actions

(Latour, 2005) nor as single human subjectivity undertaking conscious actions. Rather, following ANT, I define an actor as a part of collection of things that makes them “act” in a particular way. To put it differently, an actor is an inseparable entity that is part of a collection or aggregate of entities that take part in action (Latour, 2005). Hence, as the name

“actor-network” suggests, an actor is always part of a network, and the action of an actor is always understood in relation to the constant associations with other actors in the network.

This understanding has important consequences for the tracing of actors in a given context, which have to be followed as a series of relation- and association-making entities that “act” in a particular way. Given this concept of actor, my research places equal emphasis on the roles of human and nonhuman actors in the course of the analysis. I take into consideration the role of technology itself (as an example of a nonhuman actor) in the production, negotiation, and distribution of power in infrastructure development.

Because this conceptualization of actor entails symmetry between the human and the nonhuman, it is also important to understand the concept of the agency of the nonhuman.

25

As mentioned above, ANT understands agency as the ability to do something, to make a change, or to transform the state of affairs. So what does it mean when we say there is agency in nonhuman entities? Sayes (2014) notes four ways to understand the agency of the nonhuman shapes society. First, “nonhuman agency is the condition of possibility of human society” (p.137). ANT has argued that the durability in human associations is not solely built upon human interactions, but is a result of the inclusion of nonhuman entities within those interactions. This means that various nonhuman entities help to stabilize human collectives, although their actions are not always visible. This is to say that, in many instances, humans delegate important roles to nonhuman entities. In turn, those delegations make human interactions more durable (but in some cases may also deteriorate those interactions). Hence, to fully comprehend our social world, we should no longer limit our understanding solely to the inter-subjectivity of human collectives; we must move beyond it to inter-objectivity in human-nonhuman collective (Sayes, 2014). The obvious example is the way in which humans delegate the role of mediating long-distance interactions to the capabilities of communication technologies (telegraph, internet, mobile phone, etc.). In turn, these technologies with their capabilities have made human long-distance interactions more durable and long-lasting.

Second, Sayes argued that the role of the nonhuman as a condition of possibility of human society does not mean that nonhuman entities only contribute as intermediaries, placeholders, or mere conduits that transmit action from elsewhere (Latour, 2005; Sayes,

2014, p.138). Rather, nonhuman actors have certain endowments and affordances in the

26

networks where they are positioned, and those capabilities are able to change the course of action of other actors. To use communication technology example, the particular characteristic of those technologies (such as the standard language of telegram, the algorithm behind a program on the Internet, the coverage of mobile-phone services, and even battery capacity) shape the mode of human communication mediated by those technologies.

Third, Sayes argued that the agency of nonhuman actors also plays an important role in our moral and political associations. This role is enacted when “[i]nter-subjective morality is weaved together with inter-objective morality, and inter-subjective politics with inter-objective politics” (Sayes, 2014, p. 139, following argument from Latour, 1989). Using the example of the seatbelt to keep drivers safe, Latour (1989) argues that our collectives have “outsourced” some of the regulating and morality principles to machines, or nonhuman entities (p.139) in making decision to use or not to use seatbelt in protecting our safety. The feature of the automatic machine warning to use a seatbelt (or even more directly, automatic seatbelts that move into place when one closes the door) that is inscribed in the car design has interfered in the human moral decision to protect one’s safety.

Fourth and finally, Sayes argued that although nonhuman actors have taken a role in our moral and political association, it does not mean that morality and the politics of nonhuman entities can be separated from other entities (in this case human entities) (Sayes,

2014). This explanation addresses the question of whether there is such a thing as nonhuman free will or motivation. To understand the capacity of nonhuman agency in our morality and

27

politics, it is best to consider it not as separate but as a part of a collective that includes other human and nonhuman actors (Sayes, 2014).

Another important conception from ANT that is used in this research is the understanding of the social in a flattened topographical sense. As a consequence of the perspective that “the social” is in constant movement of assembling and re-assembling heterogeneous entities, ANT refuse to claim there is an overarching “structure” or “system” that holds society together, or an “invisible force” behind the interactions of actors and the associations that determine or affect those interactions. If indeed there is such a force, it must be produced somewhere. In other words, there is no ready-made concept that can be used as an explanation of certain actions without identifying where the concept originated, or how the particular structures or systems come about. Latour (2005) aptly described this idea by saying,

whenever anyone speaks of a ‘system', a ‘global feature', a ‘structure', an

‘empire', a ‘world economy', an ‘organization', the first ANT reflex should be to

ask: ‘In which building? In which bureau? Through which corridor is it

accessible? Which colleagues has it been read to? How has it been compiled?’ (p.

183).

Hence, in order not to jump to such abstract conceptions, one has to trace continuous connections from one action to another, or trace the link from one local interaction to other

28

local interactions. This method of tracing continuous connections helps to discern the fluid movement of technology, discourse, or ideas from one place to another without forcing disconnections between “the global,” “the national,” or “the local.” Thus, instead of making conceptual leaps from global to local, or from macro to micro, this research endeavors to capture series of connections, chains of displacements, or sequences of translation that took place over time and across different places in order to understand the ways in which technological infrastructure developed.

The idea of flattened connections used in this research also helps answer the question of scale. In this study, I do not predetermine the scale of the analysis, or whether it will be an analysis of global, national, or local power. Rather, the global, the national, and the local are seen as series of connection between different actors in different locations. Hence, this research provides and explanation of the development of Indonesian Internet infrastructure by tracing as many connections as possible among different actors, actions, discourses, and phenomena—no matter where they were located—and analyzing the ways in which those connections made the construction of infrastructure attainable or, in some cases, unattainable.

1.3. Governmentality: the modes of governing telecommunication infrastructure

Having explained how the ANT framework contributes to this research—in the understanding of the social as a continuous process of assembling and re-assembling associations, in the notion of the agency of the nonhuman, and in the method of a flattened

29

social topography – I extend my analysis of the mechanisms of power by incorporating the concept of governmentality from Foucault. As noted above, there are several parallels in the ways ANT and Foucaldian perspectives conceptualize power—in the way power is understood as performative, or as an action upon other actions; in the way power is seen not as a substance, but as generated through interactions and associations among a number of entities; and in the way power is not merely played out according to human intentions and human subjectivity. These essential parallels, I argue, is one of the basis for using both of these perspectives in an integrated analytical framework in my investigation of the politics of

Indonesian Internet infrastructure development. Later in this section, I will also identify another parallel as a basis of using both perspectives. It will then followed by my argumentation in reconciling both frameworks.

Foucault introduced the notion of governmentality in his lecture series from 1977 until 1979, later compiled in the books entitled Security, Territory, Population Security

(2009) and The Birth of Biopolitics (2008). Through the introduction of this concept in these lectures, Foucault took a rather different turn in his intellectual endeavor from his previous works; from focusing on power mechanisms in narrow institutional contexts such as the factory, the hospital, the asylum, the prison, etc., to focusing on power mechanisms in the larger context of the State. According to Gordon (1991), Foucault’s lectures on governmentality were a response to some of the criticisms that had been directed against him.

Critics argued that Foucault’s analysis of the microphysics of power within disciplinary mechanisms was inadequate or irrelevant for addressing the issues of politics or power

30

mechanisms at the State level. In response to this criticism, Foucault argued that the technique of power that applied in the context of local institution can also be applied to address the mechanisms of power at the level of population, and there is no incoherence in material or methodology between macrophysical and microphysical approaches to the study of power (Gordon, 1991). The conceptualization of governmentality, therefore, can be seen as a shift in the focus of analysis of power mechanisms from disciplinary mechanisms that shape and control individual at the level of localized social institutions to the government (or security) mechanisms that aim to shape the conduct of populations at the level of the State or society.

The notion of govermentality (Foucault used this term interchangeably with

“government rationality,” or “the art of government”) refers to number modes of governing that span across centuries, particularly in Western society. Foucault’s genealogical tracing of the governmental notion shows that “to govern” meant different things in the earlier context of the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, and still had not yet acquired its the political meaning until sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Foucault, 2009). To govern can refer to

“… the exercise of command, of a constant, zealous, active, and always benevolent prescriptive activity,” to “the control one may exercise over oneself and others, over someone’s body, soul, and behavior,” and also to “a circular process or process of exchange between one individual and another” (2009, p. 167). Elsewhere, Foucault (1982) develops a similar notion:

[g]overnment’ did not refer only to political structures or to the management of

31

states; rather, it designated the ways in which the conduct of individuals or of

groups might be directed: the government of children, of souls, of communities,

of families, of the sick….To govern, in this sense, is to structure the possible held

of action of others. (p. 341).

These earlier meanings of governing had nothing to do with the relation between the State and citizens, as we understand it today. The notion of government as inseparable from the notion of the State, according to Foucault, came about beginning in the eighteenth century, which Foucault referred as the “govermentalization of the State” (2009, p.144). The process started with the emergence of demographic expansion afforded by the expansion of agriculture production and the increasing circulation of money. Around the same time, the notion of “economy” that was understood as a type of management of the household or family also gained further development into modern “economy” in the larger context of population (Foucault, 2009). The birth of new science, such as statistical and political economy, also contributed to greater knowledge of population regularities and the relation between population, territory, and wealth (Foucault, 2009).

These renewed understandings of population as well as economy had a fundamental effect on the ways in which the art of government was conceived. The art of government and the reason of state that came together beginning in the eighteen century brought us to an understanding of government that has its ultimate focus on population and welfare. This brings us to the present-day notion of government, which is strongly tied to the notion of State and its diverse apparatus of institutions, agencies, regulations in managing a

32

population and its welfare.

Throughout his two-year lectures on governmentality, Foucault explained his genealogical study of the concept of government across different times and presented compelling expositions about the change in governing reasons. He recognized certain activities and practices of governing with their each distinctive rationality of governing and technology of power. He identified the idea of the governing of the soul in a form of pastoral power that stemmed from the religious practice in early Christianity. He also identified the doctrine of government associated with the idea reason of state and the police state. Another form of governing that Foucault identified is liberalism, which brought forward the question of “frugality of government,” the question of governing between maximum and minimum, when the “market” became the site of veridiction (Foucault, 2008). Ultimately, Foucault identified neo-liberalism as a form of governing that features political intervention through empowering individuals to conduct self-regulation and self-responsibilization.

All these forms of governing have their own strategies, their technologies of power, and their rationality. Foucault identified a particular trajectory and continuity across these different government rationalities, from pastoral govenmentality to neo-liberal govenmentality. He elaborated the conditions of possibility of the shifts from one governing rationality to another. Foucault emphasized, however, that the shift from one rationality to another does not mean that the previous rationality has vanished. In other words, a rationality of governing is not mutually exclusive. For example, liberalism does not make pastoral mode of governing obsolete. Rather, there is always a possibility of correlation, crossover,

33

coexistence, and symmetry of rationalities of governing in any given time. This conclusions stemmed from Foucault’s method of analysis, which did not start from an a priori unity but from the multiplicity of extraordinarily diverse processes and the various networks of relations of government practices across different times (Foucault, 2009).

A number of contemporary scholars have made contributions to the interpretation and expansion of Foucault’s definition of governmentality in various studies. Dean (2010), for example, defined government as,

… any more or less calculated and rational activity, undertaken by a multiplicity

of authorities and agencies, employing a variety of techniques and forms of

knowledge, that seeks to shape conduct by working through the desires,

aspirations, interests and beliefs of various actors, for definite by shifting ends

and with a diverse set of relatively unpredictable consequences, effects and

outcomes . . . . (p. 1).

Another example of definition of the concept government from contemporary scholars come from Gordon (1991) who defined it as an activity that, “…concerns the relation between self and self, private interpersonal relations involving some form of control or guidance, the relation between social institutions and communities, and finally relations concern with exercise of political sovereignty” (p. 2). From the example of these two definitions, it can be seen that definition of government that is rooted from Foucault conceptualization is not only limited to the organization or administration in the level of State, but also applies to the

34

continuum of governance in the level of self, interpersonal, social institution and communities, to the level of political sovereignty.

In the area of cultural studies and media studies, a number of researchers have used the concept of govenmentality from Foucault to analyze contemporary issues that related to media, in a general sense. Packer (2013) argued that the application of Foucaldian govenmentality in the investigations of media history is one way (he also explicated three other ways) to combine Foucault’s two primary historiographic methods; archaeology, with primary concern with the historical constitution of a specific field of knowledge, and genealogy, with primary concern with the historical constitution of power, knowledge, and practice of self. The outcome of the combination of these two Foucaldian methods in the examination of media history will enable the researcher to engage in three concerns, “(1) the production of knowledge, (2) relationships of power, and (3) modes of subjectification”

(Packer, 2013, p. 2). The use of Foucaldian framework in the analysis of media (and media history), according to Packer (2013), is to bridge the bifurcation of two common approaches in the analysis of media history; one that emphasize of media technology, and the other that emphasize on mass media institutions and media content. Both of these approaches have their own shortcomings, as Packer stated,

[w]hile the media/technology strain is often said to be infected by “technological

determinism,” the media/institution wing is filled with the whiggish remnants of

a time when great men (sic) lorded over history’s conscience and were thought to

man (sic) the great levers of time’s passage (2013, p. 5).

35

To overcome this bifurcation in the study of media history, following Nerone (2003) and

Hutomo and Parikka (2011), Packer suggested to conduct micro history of specific technologies in the context of their particular media environments (2013). Conducting a careful micro history analysis of media, they argued, could help researchers not to fall in to the trap of painting media with broad strokes that encompass everything, and to fall into the grand-narrative trap set by teleology (Packer, 2013).

A number of studies have applied the concept of governmentality to the analysis of media, positioning media and communication technologies as elements of the technologies of power governing individuals or populations. In other words, the main premise of media govenmentality studies is that communication technologies and media shape the conduct of individuals, communities, and populations. This line of thought can be seen the work of

Bennet (1998) on the historical analysis of public museums as cultural institutions that aim

“to reshape an unruly mass into a better-mannered and productive population” (cited in

Packer, 2013, p. 15). Greene (2005) focused on the ways in which the YCMA utilized film distributions, exhibitions, discussion sessions, viewing guides to shape the conduct of newly arrived immigrant blue-collars workers in the United States. Similarly, Hay (2012) investigated the role of television in governing the urban population, and Hay and Ouelette

(2008) examined the role of reality TV in governing populations with the goals of serving the public interest, achieving cultural uplift and good citizenship, and using television as a technology for self actualization.

In the present study, I follow a similar line of thought in order to examine the

36

different forms of rationality governing technological infrastructure as an element in the governing of the population. I see telecommunication infrastructure as part of the technologies of power used to achieve and maintain order through population management.

Foucault himself examined the governing of infrastructure in relation to the governing of populations. For example, Foucault examined three different cases of town planning and the organization of space to discern the differences in rationalities governing societies of sovereignty, disciplinary societies, and societies of security (Foucault, 2009, pp. 27-34). I use a similar approach, tracing and identifying different practices of governing infrastructure in order to discern how these may relate to rationalities in governing the population as well as in governing State territory.

Hence, through the analysis of the development of telecommunication infrastructure, I also want to examine what strategic ends are accomplished or imagined to be accomplished by several different communication infrastructures in the past and in present time of Indonesia. In other words, the examination of infrastructure development in this research also involves the identification of problematizations, or the ways in which the different formations of governance via telecommunication infrastructure get conceived of as solutions to imagined governmental (and in some cases, military) problems. A case in point in this research is the examination of the construction of the Great Mail Road as one of the early infrastructures built in the Dutch colonial era. The elaborate effort to build this road network from the western to the eastern tip of Java island was motivated by a military strategy: the use of land transportation instead of sea transportation to avoid military attacks

37

from the British navy, which had formidable power over the Java Sea at the time.

In my application of the governmentality framework in this research, I aim to identify the various governing actions taken by different actors: the formations of laws and regulations, the formation of institutions, the implementation of different programs, the dissemination of various discourses, the promotions of certain technology--all actions that ultimately have the population as the ultimate target. This application is in accordance with

Foucault’s (2009) definition of governmentality as

[t]he ensemble formed by institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections,

calculations, and tactics that allow the exercise of this very specific, albeit very

complex, power that has the population as its target, political economy as its

major form of knowledge, and apparatuses of security as its essential technical

instrument (p.144).

In this sense, I also see this assemblage of material technology, laws and regulations, institutions, programs, strategies, and discourses as the heterogeneous elements that play certain roles in governing Indonesian telecommunication infrastructure. By focusing on the development of telecommunication infrastructure in its specific regulatory, institutional, discursive, and strategic contexts, I offer a micro-history of media and communication technologies As Packer (2013) and Nerone (2008) have suggested, this allows us to discover media history in the specificity of its environment.

38

Foucault also coined the term apparatus (dispositif) of governmentality as a way of understanding the heterogeneous elements that are used in the governing actions

(particularly in his two-part series lectures on governmentality in 1977-1979, although he did not specifically define the apparatus in that particular lecture series). In an interview however, Foucault defined apparatus as

a thoroughly heterogeneous set consisting of discourses, institutions, architectural

forms, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements,

philosophical, moral, and philanthropic propositions - in short, the said as much

as the unsaid. Such are the elements of the apparatus. The apparatus itself is the

network that can be established between these elements (Foucault, 1977, p. 194).

Foucault further added that in his identification of the apparatus of power he aimed to identify “the nature of the connection that can exist between these heterogeneous elements”

(1977, p 196). In this way of understanding, I see another parallel between an ANT framework and Foucaldian framework. If the ANT framework aims to follow the actor- network and its various associations in explaining the process of translations or transformations of a particular phenomenon, the analysis of governmentality and the governing apparatus aims to identify the elements of the apparatus and the nature of connections within the network of the apparatus. Hence, there is a close resemblance between the two frameworks. This is the second parallel between ANT and Foucaldian governmentality, in addition to the parallel in the conceptualization of power discussed in the previous section.

39

Having identified some important parallels between the ANT and Foucaldian frameworks, particularly in the conceptualization of power and in the parallel concepts of actor-network and governing apparatus, I now discuss some key differences in these perspectives and identify some ways in which they may complement each other. First, the combined use of ANT and Foucaldian governmentality makes it possible to investigate, on the one hand, the agency of technologies in shaping the network of actors, and, on the other hand, the ways in which technology is used as part of strategy and apparatus for governing subjects or population. While both frameworks recognize the role of heterogeneous elements such as technology, discourses, institutions, architectural forms, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, etc. in the course of actions (i.e. in the process of translation, in the ANT sense, or in the governing of actions, in the Foucaldian sense), they differ in their emphasis on human subjects and non-human objects. In his discussion of the relation between a Foucaldian framework and ANT (or STS in general), Steve Matthewman

(2013) stated, “Foucault was interested in the ways in which techniques re-socialize human subjects; ANT is more interested in the ways in which techniques socialize non-human objects” (p.4). Given this difference of emphasis, I will use the ANT framework to focus more on non-human objects and the governmentality framework to focus on the actions of humans and the practices of governing human subject.

Second, the ANT concept of the social as a flattened topography (Latour, 2005), makes it possible to trace and identify heterogeneous actors and their continuous relations and associations in a “myopic” manner. This ANT perspective helps avoid jumping to

40

abstract concepts or assumptions about the roles of particular actors before identifying the location of the production of the particular concepts, or the location of the particular actors.

For example, instead of presuming that “the State” is a key actor, we can use ANT to identify the specific network of institutions and agencies that enact the functions of the State.

Third, the analytic of governmentality helps illuminate relations between the

State, populations, and the governing rationality that connects the two (via a governing apparatus that includes technology). This allows us to analyze the governing rationality shaping telecommunication infrastructure as an attempt to shape the conduct of the population. In other words, the Foucaldian governmentality framework helps elucidate the relations between state, market, population, territory, and economy, which help us understand the power mechanisms operating in the case of infrastructure development. Hence, each of these two frameworks—the ANT perspective and the Foucauldian approach—makes specific contributions.

Drawing on the methods of ANT, this research makes the actors speak of themselves and explain their actions in any given case, which Latour (2005) coined as infra- language. The Foucaldian governmentality framework, on the other hand, helps me to extend the analysis to see the rationality governing infrastructure as part if the apparatus for governing the population or shaping the conduct of the population. In other words, while

ANT helps the researcher follow the actors through continuous connections, the governmentality framework allows the researcher to see the governing rationalities or governing actions that run through those continuous connections of actors. Although ANT

41

has a certain aversion to this kind of “social explanation” (Latour, 2005), I argue that

Foucaldian governmentality analysis can be used as an extension of the ANT explanation and does not violate the principles of ANT. Furthermore, I reiterate, these two frameworks are not in contradiction with each other; they share assumptions about the conceptualization of power and the ways that power operates in society; they are both interested in investigating the location of power mechanisms (or the microphysics of power); and they both reject the assumption that there is an enduring social structure or prior social relations and social values that determine the mechanism of power.

One might observe that the context of Foucault’s studies governmentality was

Western society, whereas my study is located in a region that is not even remotely identified with the West geographically, politically, or culturally. To respond to this concern, I would argue that telecommunication infrastructure and the Internet are elements of a highly interconnected world, part of a so-called “global network” or “global phenomenon,” such that the division between “East” and “West” is more and more vague, if not irrelevant. But even more important than this, and if indeed the argument of West vs. East still holds, it would be interesting to see if there is movement or fluidity of governing rationality from

West to East, and what kind of connections facilitate that movement.

1.4. Data and Method

The data used in this research come primarily from my nine months of fieldwork in Indonesia from October 2014 to June 2015; however, my understanding of the Internet

42

landscape in Indonesia is based on my long-term experience as a citizen of the country. I grew up and was educated in Indonesia until I moved to the United States to pursue graduate study in 2011. I experienced the early moment of Internet adoption in the country in the late

1990s, and I was part of the group of teenage early adopters. I also experienced the rapid growth of mobile broadband adoption the early 2000s (when the Blackberry smartphone boom took place and 3G service became available). Growing up in two different regions in

Indonesia, first in North Sumatera and then in Central Java, I have experienced the disparities of the quality of infrastructure and Internet service in different parts of the country. This background experience provided me with familiarity and understanding regarding the

Internet landscape of the country, which was helpful for my period of focused field research.

After spending some time in the field and familiarizing myself with the emerging issues and discussion topics that dominated the telecommunication industry at that moment, I inductively identified three cases on which to focus my research. This process was started after I gained approval from North Carolina State University’ Institutional Review Board

(IRB) to do field observations and different types of interviews, I began to approach several gate-keepers in the organizations that I considered would be the appropriate sites to acquire the relevant information for this research. My approach to one of the senior staffer in the

Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, specifically in the Sub-directorate of Planning and Allocation of Fixed and Mobile Terrestrial Spectrum (Sub Direktorat

Penataan Alokasi Spektrum Dinas Tetap dan Bergerak Darat), was received positively. I found the information about this particular contact since I was in North Carolina when I conducted a similar smaller research project that related to the use of radio frequency for

43

Internet connection in Indonesia. He had written an e-book that available for free about the uses and the regulations of radio spectrum in Indonesia. He also provided his contact information in the book. I was putting him in the list of potential people to be contacted once

I start my fieldwork in Indonesia. Upon my first attempt to establish communication with him, he was willing to meet with me to further discuss my research planning. In our meeting

I explained my research in detail and propose to do site observation in the office. He agreed to provide access for me to do site observations within the Sub-Directorate office, after further discussing my research activities with his superior in the ministerial directorate. Thus, in the first phase of my fieldwork, I was able to gain access to do on-site observations in the office of the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT), in Jalan Budi

Kemulyaan, Jakarta.

My approach to gathering information in the office of the MCIT was more focused on following the current issues and policies in telecommunication sector around the country, rather than observing the practices and activities that took place in the office. In a sense, I put less emphasis on specific day-to-day activities in the office and focused on obtaining information that was related to the current issues, which later informed my selection of the main cases study in this research. It is important to point out that during my field observations in the MCIT office, my status was as a student researcher, which means that I was not specifically involved in the activities and daily tasks of the office. There were times that I was asked to be a delegate of the office to attend seminars or other events outside

44

the office, or to do some minor tasks, which were not related to the main activities of the office.

During my on-site observations for almost three months in this regulatory office,

I was able to obtain valuable knowledge and a number of important bodies of information that were relevant to my research. First, I was able to gain insight into a number of current issues in the Indonesian telecommunication industry. Second, in addition to spending time daily in the offices and interacting with the staff to immerse myself in daily operations, I was able to conduct interviews and discussions with several informants in the office, including the head of the sub-directorate, a World Bank consultant (who happened to be doing on-site consulting at the time I was there), and a number of staff who involved in drafting the regulations for use of radio spectrum for mobile broadband Internet. Third, I was able to gain access to several valuable documents that were relevant for my research, such as policy papers, consulting notes, executive reports, feasibility studies, etc. (None of the information from the documents that I used in this research was classified as confidential.) Fourth, I was able to acquire a number of important contacts, both within ministry staff and outside the ministry office, who became key informants after ending my on-site observations at the ministry office.

Gaining access to the ministry office to do on-site observations did not mean that

I had access to all the information in the office. For example, I was not able to attend some meetings with industry players about the reassignment or reorganization of the 1800 MHz

45

band since those meetings were deemed to be internal. However, I was still able to obtain some information about what happened in the meeting from other actors, such as the telecommunication operators who did attend the meeting. This is one of the examples of limited access that I had to face in the course of my fieldwork. Despite some limitations in access to meetings, however, my gatekeepers in the ministry office were generous enough to provide a number of documents that were relevant to my research, and frequently pointed me in the direction of sources where such documents could be found, as well as the direction where the relevant research informants to be interviewed.

In the next phase of my fieldwork, after I thought that I have reached the information saturation on my site observation in the regulatory office, I attempted to carry out similar observations in several private telecommunication companies. I contacted a number of companies, such as PT Telkom Indonesia, Telkomsel, Internux, APJII and several other organizations to ask if I could conduct another on-site observations in those companies.

These private companies and organizations were less open with such involvement within the organization; however, they had no objection to me conducting several in-depth interviews with personnel who they thought could provide information relevant to my research. Thus, at this stage of fieldwork I conducted several rounds of in-depth interviews with officials in different positions in these organizations. Through direct contact to the companies, and through chain-of-referral recruitment, I was able to develop communication that led to the opportunity of conducting fifteen in-depth interviews (with multiple interviews to several informants) with industrial players, including officials from PT XL-Axiata, PT Telkom,

46

Telkomsel, PT Indosat, MASTEL, KADIN, and a number of informants in broadcasting industry in relation to the issue of Digital Switch Over (DSO). I was also able to conduct ten in-depth interviews with staff working in other regulatory institutions, such as BP3TI (the organization that handles USO funding) and Ministry or National Development Planning

(MNDP, or BAPPENAS). However, there were also several cases when I was not able to conduct interviews because of the lack of positive response from a number of telecommunication companies, such as in the case of PT Hutchison 3 Indonesia (the company was not willing to conduct any kind of interview) and the case of Internux (the particular sources did not reply to my contact attempts through email, phone call, and text messages). In addition to the on-site observation and rounds of in-depth interviews in Jakarta,

I also conducted observations outside Jakarta, mainly in sites related to the study of telecenters in rural areas. I was able to observe several Internet service centers, mainly in

Yogjakarta and Central Java.

The practice of moving across several research sites during my fieldwork in

Indonesia is resonant with what Marcus (1995) called multi-sited ethnography. According to

Marcus, the definition of the field site as a bounded territory has serious limitations, given the increasing movement of humans, material, and practices that has become a common phenomenon in society. Hence, we should not assume that cultural production and cultural practices only take place in a single bounded geographical space. Multi-sited ethnography views cultural formations as occurring in multiple sites and fragmented spaces, and not in static and bounded geographical spaces. The task of the ethnographer, then, is to discover the

47

paths of the connections and associations of different elements of culture in the process of the cultural formation (Marcus, 1995). In the context of the present research multi-sited observations and in-depth interviews were some of the most effective ways to “follow the actors,” as called for by ANT (Latour, 2005) and to trace the actor-network that has shaped the development of Indonesian Internet infrastructure. In addition to site observations and in- depth interviews, I also followed people, objects, metaphors (language, signs, symbols), narratives or stories, and even conflicts (Marcus, 1995; Sheller & Urry, 2006; Hine, 2007) through close examination of various types of texts and documents, including policy papers, project reports, historical studies, academic journals, company websites, and mass media reports (online and offline). Through all these different sources of information, I was able to make connections across different actors, actions, and events in different times and places that helped answer different questions about the process of infrastructure construction and development. It is important to point out that there were differences in the degree of access I had from one site to another, the opportunities to conduct interviews I had from one company to another, and the degrees of access to certain documents; these differences created differences in the intensity and quality of information that I could gain from different actors.

The depth of these engagements is more or less reflected in the production of the actors’ accounts as well as in the analysis of the data. These differences in depth of involvement and engagement in obtaining information are inevitably tied to the limitations of this research.

There are several forms of data that I was able to produce and to obtain in my fieldwork: 1) Interview transcripts contain the accounts of the human actors involved in the

48

network of Indonesian Internet infrastructure development. They may contain information regarding their roles, interests, practices, and activities in the network.8 2) Observations and field notes are descriptions or narratives about situations I observed and the ways in which practices or activities played out. 3) Notes on the work of technological instruments are explanations of the work of material technologies. 4) Archival data includes different types of documents that could only be found during the course of site visits, such drafts of policy papers, meeting notes, company reports, and some documents that could not be accessed through the Internet, such as a number of laws and regulations, online discussions, academic research papers, and media reports. I used all these different types of data in order to produce the account of the actions and interaction of actors in the network of Internet infrastructure construction.

As mentioned earlier in this section, the three cases chosen for this study were identified and defined inductively during my fieldwork in Indonesia. The determination of these three cases was based on several considerations. First, the cases were selected to allow me to address key emerging issues in the Indonesian telecommunication sector during my fieldwork. Second, I wanted to conduct a close examination of infrastructure in the two main types of Internet access—fixed network infrastructure and mobile network infrastructure.

Hence, I focused my attention on the Palapa Ring project to examine the construction of the principal backbone network infrastructure, which gained renewed public interest through the

8 I conducted most of the interviews in Indonesian, which I transcribed in the same language. I then carried out the data categorization (or data coding) in Indonesian and did not translate interview passages into English until I was ready to incorporate specific passages into a chapter draft. The reason for doing this was to retain the nuances of the interview in the interviewee’s original language, which may be useful in the analysis.

49

issuance of the Indonesia Broadband Plan at the end 2014, and on the adoption of LTE technology as the key issue in the mobile broadband market. Based on my study of these two cases, I found the reoccurrence of issues of disparity of access in both fixed network and mobile network communication. Consequently, I began to investigate what action or program has been taken to provide access to rural and underserved areas. This question brought me to the issue of the Indonesian universal service program, which I investigated further in my fieldwork and which I analyze in the third and final case study (Chapter 5).

I took several intuitive steps to analyze the different forms of data mentioned above. First, I grouped the data based on three different cases that I had chosen. There were some instances in which an interview was relevant in two or three case studies; for these cases I made two separate copies of the files of the interview. Second, I categorized the information based on the time sequence of events in each case study. This approach helped to organize the data in a certain order. While doing this, I also made some notes about the possible arrangement of sequences of events that would possibly be presented as the sub- chapter or sub-section in the dissertation. Third, I started to write a continuous narrative and a more complete account by combining information from the pool of thematic data that I had arranged. This step produced rough drafts of chapters containing mainly the empirical information, or empirical accounts. Last, I added my analysis and critical assessment of the meanings of these empirical accounts using the analytical framework I have developed drawing on ANT and Foucaldian governmentality. Throughout the arranging, categorizing, and sequencing of the information from the pool of data as well as in the writing the narrative

50

or the empirical account in each chapter, the ANT framework helped me focus on the actors, their relation to each other, and the sequence of their actions in order to form a coherent narrative. I then attempted to discern what salient ANT concepts emerged from this empirical account, which would become the focus of the main arguments in the particular case study.

As for the application of Foucaldian govenmentality framework, I used it to extend my argument regarding the rationality of governing, as I have explained in the previous section.

1.5. The organization of the dissertation

The chapters of this dissertation are organized around the three empirical cases.

Following this introduction, Chapter 2 is a historical study of infrastructure development to put the current Internet infrastructure building in a larger context of the development of telecommunication infrastructure in the country. I will provide an overview of the telecommunication landscape in Indonesia that will help the reader better understand the three case studies presented in the subsequent chapters. I organize this historical overview into five different time frames: the colonial era, early independence, the expansion of the economy in 1970s, the first phase of early deregulation of the telecommunication industry, and the further liberalization of the market in the late 1900s following the economic crisis.

Through this historical account, I identify the heterogeneous actors, their actions, and their association with each other through the course of the historical development of telecommunication infrastructure. I also identify the specific events and social and political conditions that led to those associations. In other words, I place the shifting composition of actors in the telecommunication sector within the broader context of the political and social

51

constellations of the time. I also identify the modes of governing that were utilized in the telecommunication sector in these different historical contexts. I argue that there is a particular trajectory of infrastructural governance, from the colonial era through the era of telecommunication market liberalization, in which the rationality shifted from focusing on the protection of sovereignty over territory and the protection of national security to a more liberalized control over the telecommunication sector, albeit with a certain degree of government intervention. Through my historical tracing and analysis of infrastructure development, I present an argument that telecommunication infrastructure in many instances is functioned as governing apparatus, which involved in defining the relations of power, in producing knowledge, and in producing subjectivication.

In the Chapter 3, I will focus specifically on Internet infrastructure and will present the first case study, an analysis of the Palapa Ring project as a plan to build the main fiber-optic backbone for broadband access. In the case study, I will trace the network of actors in the Palapa Ring project as portrayed in the Indonesian Broadband Plan. The description of the broadband development plan in this document will indicate that the Palapa

Ring was expected to play a significant role in economic development and progress and in promoting the welfare of the population. There are the indication the agency of the Palapa

Ring is not only come from it technical capacity but also come from the discourse surround the Palapa. Thus, aside from tracing the actors that were involve in the Palapa Ring project, I will also trace discourse that was embedded in the ‘palapa’ term. Through this tracing of actors and discourse, I argue that the Palapa Ring can be considered as a hybrid, or the fusion

52

of a discourse of nationality, unity, progress, and development with the technical capacity of the fiber-optic backbone as a dependable channel for transporting digital information across the country. The tracing also reveals the mutation and multiplication of the identity of the

Palapa Ring through the course of its implementation. I end this chapter with an analysis of the future potential of the Palapa Ring, since this project is still ongoing and has not been completed.

In Chapter 4, I will present a case study of the adoption of 4G/ LTE technology in the Indonesian mobile broadband market. I will examine the situation of the mobile market at the time of the arrival of LTE and the enthusiasm surrounding the adoption of LTE.

I will examine the technological architecture of the LTE technology to better understand the source of the capacity and the affordance of this “new technology” that enable a better and more improve performance as compare to its predecessor. The examination of the inside of the LTE will also help to understand its technological prescription to be followed by mobile operator in order to deploy the LTE. I also will explain the situation surrounding spectrum use, which was marked by the spectrum crisis or the spectrum crunch. On the one hand, from the regulatory agency standpoint the adoption of LTE was tied to the goal of spectrum optimization for better mobile communication service; on the other hand, for the telecom operators it was seen as the provision of new mobile service. I argue that LTE adoption in

Indonesia was an instance of “upgrading and reskilling” of nonhuman actors as a consequence of the distribution of competence between human and nonhuman actors. I also argue that the early adoption of LTE in Indonesia was an example of heterogeneous

53

engineering, a concept introduced by Law (1987) to identify the approach in building a system that orchestrated and arranged not only the technological conditions, but also the economic, political, and social conditions, through the contribution of many different actors.

In Chapter 5, I will examine the implementation of the Universal Service program as a provision of telecom service in rural and underserved areas to solve the disparity of access, and to provide equality of access to the population. I will present a historical analysis of the Universal Service concept to better understand competing perspectives in regards to telecom expansion to rural areas. This historical account also helps to make a connection between the issues of access in Indonesia with the one in international/ global context. Following this historical account, I will describe the production/ creation of policy framework of the Universal Service application in Indonesia. This account will show a number of problems and limitation that emerge from this regulatory framework. I will also present a number of programs as a way to deliver telecommunication service in rural and underserved areas, including basic telephony service, and Internet service through telecenter and mobile telecenter program. I will present a number of problems and issues surrounding the implementation of Universal Service in the country, which hindered the program’s ability to achieve its mission to provide equal ICT access to the population and to overcome disparity of access. Through a number of evidences of impediments in the Universal Service implementation, I call into question the effectiveness of the State government intervention to expand access to rural and underserved areas, because such intervention seems did not successfully bring about better access for the population.

54

In Chapter 6, I will offer the conclusions of this study, with a summary of the key findings and key arguments gleaned from analysis and discussion in the previous chapters. I will also present and discuss a number of the implication or contribution of the research the academic conversations in Communication Studies, particularly to the one that focuses on communication technology. This chapter also presents the limitations of this research as well as recommendations for further studies in the same or relevant theme.

55

CHAPTER 2

The Telecommunication Landscape in Indonesia: From the Great Mail Road to the Liberation of Telecommunication Sector

The more advanced the communication system became in the colony, principally, the more Euclidean it was – the live trees, the defining points of the carefully mapped network turned iron, the wireless lines move off the grounds and thus became straighter.

Rudofl Mrazek, Engineers of Happy Land: Technology and Nationalism in a Colony (2002).

2.1. Introduction

In her article about the ethnography of infrastructure, Susan Leigh Star (1999) said the study of infrastructure is the study of boring things. It is “singularly unexciting,” and the researchers of infrastructure must put some effort to do some “digging to unearth the drama” and “to restore narrative to what appear to be dead lists” (p. 377). This expression, I think, is quite accurate. It would be less interesting if infrastructure were merely seen through the specification of technical objects or the policy papers that regulate it. Once we shift our attention and foreground the circumstances that surround the emergence of a particular infrastructure, we can see infrastructure as a fundamentally relational concept and as an organization of human behaviors. As Star (1999) put it, “infrastructure appears only as a relational property, not as a thing stripped of use” (p. 380). In other words, by bringing forward the relational concept in examining a particular infrastructure, we can see that it is

56

something that emerges out of the practices and activities of numerous different users.

Echoing this sentiment, this chapter provides an account of the history of the development of telecommunication infrastructure in Indonesia to uncover the diverse relations and associations that enable the building of infrastructure, although perhaps it is not so much about “unearthing the drama” of the infrastructure, as Star suggested, but more about identifying the important actors and the heterogeneity of their relations. This chapter, then, offers a sketch of the landscape of telecommunication infrastructure and highlights the important moments in the course of infrastructure development in order to provide a broader context for the dynamics of actors’ interactions in the subsequent chapters. The aim is to provide background that will help make sense of the situation of current infrastructure development (or the lack thereof) and to map the heterogeneous actors that have contributed, and continue to contribute, to the building of telecommunication infrastructure in the country.

Through the description of the actions and relations among actors in this historical account, I will also attempt to indicate the power relations and negotiations that have led to the current architecture of infrastructure development.

Theoretically, the importance of the historical background as a means of understanding the present is tied to the ANT concept that interactions are either synchronic or isotopic. Latour explained that interactions in the present consist of various actions of longer- lasting (or shorter-lasting) heterogeneous entities, which may come from other places and many faraway locations (Latour, 2005). As an example, my action in writing this dissertation consists of the actions (or the affordances) of my five-year-old computer, which was

57

produced somewhere in China; the help of a book that was printed in 2005;the use of a human language that has developed centuries; and the light bulb that I changed two weeks ago. My present action is, therefore, also made possible by a number of actions that took place at several different point of time in the past, and in various different places.

The same idea applies to the present interactions that involve the Indonesian telecommunication infrastructure: they are shaped by the actions of many different actors in different times and places. Hence, it is important to trace some of the key actors and their actions in order to understand how power plays out in present-day infrastructure development. My application of Actor Network Theory (ANT) helps to produce this historical account. Throughout this historical narrative, I will identify who are the actors and will provide explanations of their actions in translating, displacing, and creating order in the networks of infrastructure development, and the telecommunication sector at large. As

Latour traced the network of actors in his investigation of the pasteurization in France from other storytellers who “seem to know and are constantly defining the actors that surround them – what they want, what causes them, and they ways in which they can be weekend and linked together” (1993, p. 10), I also follow the network of telecommunication infrastructure building in Indonesia through the writing of a number of historians and researchers of

Indonesian telecommunications. Those writers provide information about who are the relevant actors and what actions they took in several different time frames of infrastructure development. In identifying the actors and their actions through the course of events through the works of these numerous writers, I explain the ways in which innovations as well as

58

regulations were passed from one actor to another in order to stabilize and perpetuate order in network. Thus, the explanation of the politics of infrastructure is woven throughout the description of the actors and their actions in the evolving actor-network of infrastructure development.

To take the analysis further beyond the description of the actors, their associations, and the process of translation, I offer the analysis of governing actions surround the infrastructure development through the Foucaldian governmentality lens. I will examine the ways in which the infrastructure building had been used as part of the strategy to provide solutions to certain problematic circumstances related to military, territory, economy, or population problems. Taken together with the formations of laws, regulations, various institutions, and other governing actions to stabilize order in society, the infrastructure building became apparatus that has the ability in determining the relation of power, in producing particular knowledge, and in producing particular subject. The application of this lens or perspective to the historical information in this chapter also helps to identify several shifting of rationality in governmental practices; from the mode of governing that emphasize the action to secure and to perpetuate power over territory, to the mode of governing that emphasize the action to protect national integrity and at the same time to produce economic progress and population welfare. At the dawn of twenty-first century, for example, the increasing influence of international organizations such as the WTO, the World Bank, and the IMF also contributed to the shifting rationality in governing the telecommunication sector and the Indonesia’s economy at large. These organizations were able to exert influence on

59

country members, including Indonesia, to open their telecom sector to various international investments made by a number of private companies. Hence, by combining the ANT and

Foucaldian govermentality lenses, this chapter will provide an explanation of the conditions of possibility for the shifts in governing rationalities that took place and the ways in which the governing actions were enacted through the infrastructure building.

The chapter begins with an account of the building of the Great Mail Road in the

Dutch colonial era as one of the early and elaborate efforts to build transportation and communication infrastructure, which produced an important legacy for subsequent infrastructure building. As the story of the Great Mail Road makes clear, disparities of infrastructure have been around since the colonial era, and current infrastructures are in part shaped by the legacy of colonial power. The chapter then traces the actors in early independence, in the era of economic expansion in the 1970s, during the beginning of telecommunication sector deregulation the late 1980s, and in the further liberalization of telecom in late 1990s. A historical analysis of the networks and governmental rationalities shaping telecommunication infrastructure in the past helps to understand the social and political forces shaping infrastructure in the present.

2.2. The Great Mail Road: the foundation of communication infrastructure

One the most important milestones in the construction of communication/ transportation infrastructure in the region known nowadays as modern Indonesia was the building of the Great Mail Road (or De Grote Postweg in Dutch). This road is a vital

60

infrastructure since it was part of the important foundation for subsequent communication infrastructures such as the telegraph, the telephone, and radio. Tracing the history of this early infrastructure is an essential means in identifying the network of influencers shaping the broader configuration of Indonesian infrastructure.

Almost all history lessons in Indonesian schools at one point mention the history of the Great Mail Road as a part of the colonial legacy. It is often pictured as one of the darkest times in the colonial era, when tens of thousands of forced laborers were mobilized to build around 1,000-kilometer length of road from Anyer to Panarukan, the western to eastern tip of the northern part island of Java (see Figure 1). As history records, the construction of this road was carried out under the command of the Herman Willem Daendels, who held the highest post in the Dutch East Indies, Governor General, from 1806 to 1811. Ricklefs noted that Daendels, who was appointed when the Dutch were under the Napoleonic regime, brought about reform using dictatorial methods to govern the colony, particularly in reducing inefficiencies and corruption that had spread through European administrations in the colonial territories (Ricklefs, 2001).9 The colonial government under Daendels quickly enrolled other actors in building this road by using military power. The advantage of the more developed military power and the political capacity to persuade lords and local rulers in various parts of Java facilitated the mobilization of local people and commoners to complete the construction of the road, which in many cases cost them their lives.

9 Although Ricklefs also notes that the reform and the dictatorial method from Daendels “achieve little but offended many” (p. 145). His reform movement brought little effect to overcome inefficiency and corruption in colonial administration.

61

Figure 1. The Great Mail Road built in the era of H.W. Daendels, the Dutch East Indies as Governor General in 1806-1811.10

The road was indispensable in maintaining Dutch colonial control and military power in the Dutch East Indies territory. As Nas & Prawito (2002) noted, the reason for road construction was less about the purpose of ‘development’ of the colony. Rather, it was an order from the King in Holland to defend Java from the incursions of England, which at the time had formidable power in the seas surrounding the archipelago. With English naval forces ruling the sea, moving Dutch soldiers by ship was not a preferred option. The circumstances required the building of road infrastructure that would expedite the sending and receiving of military messages as well as to accelerate of army mobilization to defend against coastal attacks by rival colonial powers (Nas & Prawito, 2002; Barker, 2002). The affordances of the inland road network, then, were important for Dutch military movement and territorial security—that is, for the colonial government—in Java.

10 Gunawan Kartaprana (2009) licensed under Creative Common Attribution Share-alike [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Post_Road] (accessed October 2015)

62

Before the construction of this Great Mail Road, there were road networks in

Java that linked a number of more developed regions in the island with shorter routes, such as a road that linked the west to the east (from Batavia and Semarang, and from Semarang to

Surabaya), as well as the north-south link (to connect Semarang, Surakarta, and Jogjakarta)

(Nas & Prawito, 2002). However, these roads could easily be ruined by heavy rainfall and were hardly passable in such conditions. The new road construction used these existing paths and added some new routes to create a continuous transportation connection in Java. One essential feature of this new great road was the ability to facilitate the increasing speed of transportation and movement of objects (Mrazek, 2002; Barker, 2002; Nas & Prawito, 2002).

This rapid movement could be achieved through the road design, which was made as straight as possible. In addition, the road was designed to be equipped with posts or wards (bangsal) along the way, and there were two hundred horses that were distributed among the posts. The military messengers or anyone who carried administrative affairs could ride fresh horses from each post (Nas & Prawito, 2002). As Mrazek explained, for every 16 minutes of horseback riding there was one stake (paal) to indicate a distance, and every 6 paal in the coastal areas (or 5 paal in mountainous areas) there was a post for the messengers to change horses. The availability of horses at each post reduced the time for resting horses and consequently expedited travel (Mrazek, 2002). Several writers note the new time efficiency made possible by the road. Barker (2002) mentioned that this new system reduced travel time across Java from 40 days to 6 days. Nas & Prawito (2002) indicated that mail delivery time from Batavia to Semarang could be reduced from 10-14 days to 3-4 days. Mrazek (2002), however, indicated that even with this new Daendels road, the extraction of agriculture

63

commodities still took a long time. To load coffee from interior Java and transport it to the seaport of Semarang, for instance, it still took 3 to 5 months, but this was still faster than before the construction of the road.

Beyond moving and distributing messages and goods, the building of the Great

Mail Road brought larger consequences in changing the orientation and development of cities in Java, as Nas & Prawito described at length (2002). There was the case, for example, in

Bandung, West Java, where the route of the Great Mail Road was designed to pass eleven miles north of the existing city. Governor Daendels, then, ordered the city to be moved near the Great Road. One of local rulers in the West Java region at the time, Bupati (Regent)

Wiranatakusumah, had his palace and the city square resettled near the Great Road, together with the grand mosque and the shopping market (Nas & Prawito, 2002). The elements of spatial arrangement based on traditional beliefs were maintained, but their locations were adjusted in relation to the new infrastructure. A similar change in orientation also happened in several other cities in Java. Semarang, a major city in Central Java, used to have urban activities concentrated along the Semarang River because the river was crucial to transport goods from the inland to the seashore. The river, which was navigable up to four kilometers from the seashore, was the main means of transportation for many communities, including

Chinese, Dutch, Javanese, Malays, and Arabs (Nas & Prawito, 2002). With the building of the Great Mail Road, the transport of goods was changed to mainly use the horse carts, which led to a decline in use of the river channel and was gradually becoming shallow. The urban activities also moved from the riverbanks to the roadside of the Great Mail Road.

64

Economic activities and urban planning orientations were not the only aspects influenced by the building of road infrastructure. This infrastructure even brought changes at a deeper level, related to the logic behind the change in cultural practices in Java. As Nas &

Prawito (2002) argue, the changing city orientation was part of the reflection of the changing cosmology in traditional Javanese life. The Javanese cosmology was expressed in its orientation toward the mountains and the river as main sites of urban activities. Most

Javanese ancient kingdoms (Majapahit, Mataram, Demak, etc.) were built either near a river or in the security of a mountainous area. Transportation was built to connect from the coast inland using the river, which became a main site of economic activity. Even the Chinese, as early immigrant communities, built their towns and temples alongside and facing the river

(Nas & Prawito, 2002). The construction of the Great Mail Road changed this cosmology. It relocated the main economic activities away from riversides. With the increasing traffic of the Great Mail Road, riversides were abandoned and no longer served as key sites of economic activities. The Chinese temples were no longer built facing the river. The people in colonial Java, particularly the Chinese communities, “perceived the Postweg [Mail Road] to be the new 'breath of life'” (Nas & Prawito, 2002). The presence of the new Great Mail Road, then, produced new knowledge in colonial Java. The importance of rivers and mountains in traditional beliefs diminished in the face of new knowledge that was materialized in the form of modern infrastructure. The changing city orientation eventually generated new approaches in architecture and city planning based on the new knowledge that was introduced through technology. This can also be seen as a case in point of Star’s assertion (1999) that infrastructure facilitated the organization of human practices and behaviors.

65

The affordances of the inland mail road and the capacity of horses to carry loads were eventually became increasingly inadequate for the expanding colonial economy and government affairs as well as the growth of the population, as Mrazek (2002) noted. The colonial government needed modern and advanced technology to maintain order. The problem of heavier traffic and increasing movements of population led to aspirations for steamways and steam carriages. The talk of building railways in the colony had begun as early as 1842 in Kopiist – the first ever magazine published in the Dutch-Indies - three decades after the construction of the Great Mail Road (Mrazek, 2002). Pointing out that the terrain of the colonial region (particularly Java) was relatively flat, the writers of Kopiist suggested, “the Dutch East Indies was at least as fit for the wonderful new invention as

Europe” (Mrazek, 2002, p. 5). That same year, the King of the Netherlands, Willem I, issued the first railway decree for the Dutch-Indies: “In order to promote the transport of product and other goods from Semarang to Kedoe, the Princely Land in Java, and vice versa, an iron railway will be laid” (cited in Mrazek, 2002, p. 127; emphasis added. As a result, the first 25 kilometers of iron rail in the colony were built in 1867, twenty-five years after the king’s decree. Another 300 kilometers of track were laid within a next decade, and by 1888 eight main railway lines were operating to connect the 15 largest cities, all of them in Java

(Mrazek, 2002).

The Great Mail Road routes and the subsequent railroad lines that were set in place during the Dutch colonial period in the early nineteenth century are still some of the busiest transportation routes in present-day Indonesia, known as Jalur Pantai Utara, or Jalur

66

Pantura (or North Coast Route). These routes, which facilitate an exceptionally high volume of movement of goods and people, are frequently the key locations for mass media reports.

For example, one cannot miss news stories every year during the Muslim holiday season,

Eid-al Fitr, as families travel to reunite, an important aspect of the culture of mobility in Java.

The development of subsequent technological infrastructures, such as the telegraph, electrical infrastructure, telephone, and even Internet infrastructure, are still in part following the pathways of these earlier transportation systems (the present-day railroad system is one example; see Figure 2).

Furthermore, as the tracing of networks of actors in the early development of infrastructure shows, the Dutch colonial authority under the leadership of Governor Daendels was the focal and powerful actor that had the capacity (intellectual, economic, and political) to initiate the construction of infrastructure and to enroll and mobilize other numerous actors.

This actor was the initiator of the actor-network formation for infrastructure building to solve first their military plight, and later to facilitate transportation of goods. The network of actors included lords and local leaders in many parts of regions in Java and a large number of the population of the colony. The former were enrolled with political persuasion, while the latter were enrolled with forceful military power. Land, routes, horses, bangsal (wards), and later iron rails and steam engines, were the non-human actors that all enrolled to serve colonial authority interests.

The key factor in the initial formation of this network was the Dutch military strategy for securing domination over the territory as an extension of the domination of the

67

Dutch empire over the colonial land of Java, and it can be argued that this early road infrastructure was part of the colonial governing apparatus. This infrastructure strategically organized by Dutch authority under Daendels’ leadership to address the problem of security in the colonial territory, to perpetuate its sovereignty over the land and over the population, and to bring wealth to the centers of power, both in the Netherlands and in the East Indies colonial territory. There were also economic aims—to extract natural and agricultural resources from Java to be exported to Europe, and specifically the Netherlands. In this way, this road infrastructure as a governing apparatus helped maintain Dutch political and economic authority over the island of Java.

The historical sources used to trace the actors of this early development of infrastructure did not provide clear evidence of a deliberate attempt to manage the conduct of the population through the construction of the Great Road. Population management and the promotion of the welfare of the population did not seem to be the main priorities of the project. Rather, this infrastructure served to mobilize the population for use as forced labor in the road-construction process. The Great Mail Road infrastructure positioned parts of the colonial population as the subjects that could provide manpower as forced labor for road building. In a sense, the infrastructure building served not only a military strategy (the perpetuation of Dutch colonial power over the Javanese territory), but also an economic one, as an apparatus to objectify the population as producers of manpower for road construction.

Put it this way, this infrastructure building can be seen as an apparatus of subjectification

(Agamben, 2009; Packer 2013).

68

Lastly, this road infrastructure can also be seen as an apparatus of knowledge production since it was able to shift the thinking about transport efficiency and knowledge of city planning design. By changing the movement of goods from river transportation to land transportations in a number of cities in Java, which also altered the orientation of cities and made road infrastructure as part of the center of urban populations, this early infrastructure was an apparatus that had the capacity to generate knowledge for the governing and management of colonial territory.

Figure 2. The railroad network in Java Island today. It is the expansion of early routes of the Great Mail Road in the northern part of the island.11

Another important point worth noting from this early infrastructure development is the consistent pattern, from the colonial era to the present-day Indonesia, to position Java as the center of infrastructure networks, particularly the railroad infrastructure. Since the colonial construction of the railroad, expansions of the railroad system have only occurred in

Java and, to a much smaller degree, on Sumatera Island, while other large parts of the

11 The railroad network in Java Island [http://dephub.go.id/berita/baca/bangun-rel-di-luar-jawa,-butuh- anggaran-rp-105,6-triliun/?cat=QmVyaXRhfHNlY3Rpb24tNjU=] (accessed January 2016)

69

country still have no railroad infrastructure. One can argue that this is due to the geographical and topographical features of the other islands, which are not as flat as Java, or to the low demand and low mobility of populations outside Java. But it also seems that railroad development outside Java has never been a priority in development plans in the country, and only recently has it surfaced as a topic of public discussion.12 In 2015 the Ministry of

Transportation announced a plan to build railroad infrastructure in Sumatera, Kalimantan,

Sulawesi, and Papua that will consist of 3,000 km rail line (see Figure 3) with the budget up to IDR 105.6 trillion (equal to around USD 8 million). This plan is included in the Railways

Strategic Plan for 2015-2019 compiled by the Directorate General of Railways (DGR) of the

Ministry of Transportation.13 There is still no indication if this plan will be implemented. In sum, disparities and gaps in infrastructure have existed since the colonial era. A similar pattern can be found in the development of other transportation and communication infrastructure today, including the Internet infrastructure.

12 Equitable development between the western and eastern parts of Indonesia has been one of the agenda items of the current administration of President Joko Widodo and was one of his campaign promises in 2014. President Widodo has repeatedly emphasized this goal since becoming president--for instance, in his visit to Papua island, the largest island in the eastern part of the country. However, it seems there is still no solid plan or target date for implementation [http://www.bbc.com/indonesia/berita_indonesia/2015/11/151126_indonesia_kereta_indonesia_timur] and [http://www.republika.co.id/berita/nasional/daerah/14/03/06/n1zjxg-dino-rel-ka-hanya-melimpah-di-jawa] (accessed January 2016) 13 Direktorat Jenderal Perkeretaapian (May, 2015) Bangun Rel di Luar Jawa, Butuh Anggaran Rp 105,6 Triliun [http://dephub.go.id/berita/baca/bangun-rel-di-luar-jawa,-butuh-anggaran-rp-105,6- triliun/?cat=QmVyaXRhfHNlY3Rpb24tNjU=] (accessed January 2016)

70

Figure 3. The map of railroad planning as stated in the Railways Strategic Plan 2015-2019 from the Directorate General of Railways (DGR) of the Ministry of Transportation. The blue line indicates the existing rail network and the red line indicates the planned routes. Current railroad infrastructure exists only in Java and a small part of Sumatera. 14

2.3. The beginning of telegraphy and telephony era

Telegraph and telephone networks followed the patterns of the Great Mail Road and were viewed as “nothing but extension and acceleration of the postal intercourse”

(Barker, 2002, p. 161). The colonial government laid the first telegraph line in 1856, between

Dutch residential suburbs in Batavia (now Jakarta) and the government summer place in

Buitenzorg (now Bogor), 80 kilometers from Batavia (Mrazek, 2002). The telegraph lines followed the straight route of the mail road that cut across Java in order to maximize the efficiency of cable use. Not only was the telegraph infrastructure similar to the postal road in

14 Direktorat Jenderal Perkeretaapian (May, 2015) Bangun Rel di Luar Jawa, Butuh Anggaran Rp 105,6 Triliun [http://dephub.go.id/berita/baca/bangun-rel-di-luar-jawa,-butuh-anggaran-rp-105,6- triliun/?cat=QmVyaXRhfHNlY3Rpb24tNjU=] (accessed January 2016)

71

its physical infrastructure, it was also constructed under military orders and supervision with the use of forced labor to link the cities of the island (Barker, 2002). The military purpose and military enforcement, then, were the main methods employed to enroll other actors in the building of colonial infrastructure.

The economic rationale of extracting agricultural and natural resources that motivated the construction of road and railway infrastructure also guided the building of telegraph infrastructure. Echoing the economic purpose of the railways built to transport coffee from inland Java to the port city of Semarang, the submarine cable network between

Batavia and Muntok connected the center of colonial administration to the site of a huge tin mine in Bangka (a small island in the south part of Sumatra) in 1859. This tin mine produced revenues equivalent to 5 percent of total annual budget of the colony (Barker, 2002). The submarine telegraph cable was envisioned to connect the Dutch Indies to the Netherlands via

Singapore. It would also establish connections between Java, Sumatera, and Bangka to Great

Britain’s global telegraph network (Barker, 2002). Nevertheless, the colonial government took more than a decade to establish a durable, fully operational connection to the Singapore node of the world telegraph network in 1870 the Dutch Indies (Barker, 2002).

Considering the political and economic importance of the postal and telegraph networks for connecting the Dutch Indies colonies to world economic networks, the colonial government took full control of these communication infrastructures. Centralized and monopolized control by the colonial government also made possible the accelerated application of emerging international standards in postal services in the colony, such as

72

standardized postal rates and the implementation of a stamp system to replace the traditional tipping system (Barker, 2002). In 1875, the colonial government combined the administration of postal and telegraph services and formalized its control by placing the combined administrations under the Post and Telegraph Dienst (Post and Telegraph Office), as part of the Department of Public Works (Barker, 2002). This was one of the first moves toward the governing of telecom infrastructure through formal institutionalization by the colonial government. This centralized mode of governing as well as the institutionalization of telecom services were aspects of the colonial legacy in governing telecom infrastructure.

In contrast to postal and telegraph services, which were designated to serve long- distance communication, the introduction of telephone service in the colony was initially meant to serve short-distance, localized communication, connecting homes within towns and districts (Barker, 2002). The telephone service was seen largely as supplementary to telegraph service; it had lower installation costs and was easier to operate, since users were not required to know Morse code. The first telephone network in the Dutch Indies began operation in 1883 and was used to connect several different places in the city of Batavia. The

Post and Telegraph Office (Post en Telegraf Dienst, PT) had the authority to operate the network for government administrative purposes. The office that administered this telephone network was not referred as the “telephone office” but as the “telegraph-branch office”

(Barker, 2002). Because it only covered short-distance communication with a local scope, the colonial authority seemed not to consider the telephone operation as significant enough to be controlled by government-owned institution. Thus, large parts of telephone network

73

operations and services for private business subscribers as well as communication for domestic purposes were entrusted to local private telephone companies (Barker, 2002;

Limanto & Kosuge, 2005). By 1905 there were at least 38 private telephone companies that served local networks across the colonial territory.

The colonial government’s hands-off approach toward telephone companies soon changed, as there were attempts to connect several existing local telephone networks in Java with the long-distance network. In 1906 the colonial government quickly took control and claimed monopoly authority over all telephone services. Soon the PT (Post en Telegraf

Dienst—Post and Telegraph Office) was changed to PTT (Post, Telegraf en Telefoon

Dienst—Post, Telegraph, and Telephone Office) (Barker, 2002; Limanto & Kosuge, 2005).

One of early policies of this office was to change telephone service pricing from subscription-based pricing to time-based pricing. In addition to monopolizing the network, the government started to implement monopoly pricing of telephone services. Thus, there is a changing mode of control over telephone infrastructure by the colonial government following the expansion of technological capacity from short-distance communication to long-distance communication. This changing mode of control was extended through the institutionalization of management, by taking control over private organizations and converting them into a government-owned organization. This pattern of monopoly government control over infrastructure continued in the post-colonial era.

Another technological advancement in the telegraphy and telephony era that found its way to colonial Indonesia was the wireless telegraphy system that was first patented

74

by Guglielmo Marconi in 1897. This new invention was brought to the Netherlands through the first demonstration of this “Maconi Wireless” in 1902 at the Villa Jacobson in

Scheveningen on the Holland coast, hosted by a businessman from Batavia, named Mr.

Weiss (Mrazek, 2002). This first wireless communication was initiated between the villa with

H.M.S. Eversteen, a ship that was laying anchor 80 kilometers off the coast (Mrazek, 2002;

Lemstra & van der Steen, 2011). The colonial government saw the importance of taking this new technology to the colonies to support colonial enterprises. The government allocated up to 5 million guilders (Lemstra & van der Steen, 2011). Wireless communication was first initiated in the Dutch Indies colony through an experimental transmission in 1918 that took place between Malabar Hill in Bandung, West Java, and Blaricum in the Netherlands

(Mrazek, 2002; Lemstra & van der Steen, 2011). It was not until 1929 that the colonial government-owned PTT inaugurated the first two-ways telephonic link between the

Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies with the first call between the Queen Mother and the wife of the colonial Governor General (Barker, 2001). Soon after this inaugural call, radio communication was widely used for public radio telephonic calls as well as radio broadcasting (Mrazek, 2002; Barker, 2002). From then on, telecommunication services were operated under the monopoly authority of the PTT, a situation that remained more or less unchanged until the end of the Dutch colony in the East Indies.

The tracing of the historical development of the telegraph and telephone infrastructure presented in this section reveals a larger network of infrastructure building, which includes not only the network of actors in the Dutch colonial territory, but also the

75

network of actors involved in the development of radio communication in Europe. The flow or the movement of technological innovation, in this case radio communication, connects these two networks together and to become part of the colonial network of telecommunication infrastructure linked to Indonesia. This notion echoes the idea of

‘network spatiality’ proposed by Law and Mol (1994). They argue that regions that are far apart in physical or geographical space could have a close proximity in network space, as long as there are similar entities and relations holding them together. In this case, radio communication technology tied these two different networks together. Hence, the chain of translations in the network of actors of infrastructure building continued to take place in the colony with the Dutch colonial authority as the focal actor. This actor activated more connections to a number of different and new actors, such as to the international economic network in Singapore, to the innovation of wireless telegraphy in Europe, while at the same time it successfully maintained the enrollment of earlier actor, such as the part of the population to do forced-labor, with military forces.

The tracing also shows that Dutch colonial authority not only utilized the physical infrastructure of road network (and later railway, telegraphy, and telephony network) as an apparatus in governing territory and part of military strategy, this authority also expanded and formalized the governing action through the formation of governing institution, such as the PTT or the Post, Telegraph, and Telephone Office. This institution performed the governing function in using and conducting the postal/ communication services, such as imposing a certain payment of postal services, and governing applying

76

centralized control over telegraphy and later telephony network. Therefore, it can be seen that the origin of institutionalization and centralized monopoly as a technique of governing communication infrastructure that was employed continuously in the post-colonial era, following Indonesian independence. These techniques of governing were established when the colonial authority recognized the technology’s potential for supporting the commercial and economic enterprises of colonial government as well as the economic benefits that could be generated from that technological capacity. Thus, the protection of economic interests as well as the preservation of sovereignty over territory compelled the application of strong monopoly and control as a technique of governing. A similar mode of political economy can be found in the development of telecommunication sector in early independence, with a strong emphasis on the unity of the state, as will be presented in the following section.

2.4. Telecommunication governing in early independence

The Dutch occupation in the East Indies eventually ended in 1942, following the relinquishing of power in the territory to the Japanese. The Japanese soon lost in World War

II, creating a power vacuum in the territory. The nationalist movements that had been progressing since the early 1900s and were mostly driven by young generation intellectuals

(many of whom were educated in the Netherlands) took this opportunity to proclaim national independence. The Dutch East Indies became the Republic of Indonesia in 1945. This declaration of independence, however, did not create complete sovereignty over the territory of the newly formed republic. The Dutch endeavored to regain control over the territory using both military and diplomacy strategies. After a series of diplomatic meetings and

77

agreements, in December 1949 the Dutch finally acknowledged Indonesian independence in the diplomatic meeting of Round Table Conference (RTC) in The Hague, the Netherlands.

The Dutch and Indonesian delegations signed the agreement to acknowledge the sovereignty of Republic of Indonesia over the territory (except for Western New Guinea, which would be integrated in 1961).

Having been granted political sovereignty over the territory, the newly formed state administrators, led by President Sukarno, began to form the governing apparatus quintessential to a republic. It can bee discerned from a number of historical records that the

Sukarno administration endeavored to establish three elements of governance that Foucault

(2009) considered to be characteristic of a republic: a domain or territory, a sphere of jurisdiction (a set of laws, rules, and customs), and a certain stability to these first two elements that were maintained by various institutions. First step, the Indonesian State

Constitution was established on Independence Day; the next step was to form a set of laws, regulations, and institutions in specific sectors, including telecommunication. The formation of the Ministry of Transportation, a government cabinet to oversee telecommunication, was one such step. One distinctive characteristic of governing rationality in the early independence period was the strong sense of protection and preservation of state integrity (as will be shown in this section), akin to the characteristic of the ‘reason of state’ (raison d’État), which, as Foucault (2009) argued, could be understood as a form of government rationality. Foucault defined reason of state as a type of rationality that “will allow the maintenance and preservation of the state once it has been founded, in its daily functioning,

78

in its everyday management” (2009, p.13). Foucault (2009) also indicates that one of the characteristics of reason of state is its conservative or protective aim, in which this rationality involved “… essentially identifying what is necessary and sufficient for the state to exist and maintain itself in its integrity if, in the event of it being damaged, it is necessary to re- establish this integrity’ (p. 339). A reason of state as a governing logic was evident to some extent in the early independence of Indonesia, and in the governance of the telecommunication sector specifically. The set of laws and regulations, the arrangement of governing institutions, and even the early opening of foreign investment in the telecom sector exhibited a certain degree of preservation and protective mode of governing, as will be explained further in this section.

After the Roundtable Conference (RTC) agreement was achieved establishing

Indonesian independence, the implementation of the agreement took effect immediately. One of the points included in the agreement was for the Indonesian government to protect and to guarantee the continued existence of Dutch firms in Indonesia, and in return for Dutch firms to commit to make efforts to train and to transfer the necessary skills to Indonesians to be able to fill the executive, managerial, and staff positions (van de Kerkhof, 2005). In reality, however, many of the Dutch firms’ owners were reluctant to release control to local managers. It then led to some hostilities and aggressions from local workers toward their

Dutch counterparts, which caused the exodus of many Dutch personnel and their families from the country (van de Kerkhof, 2005). This aggression against Dutch citizens and property took place toward the end of 1957 (van de Kerkhof, 2005). It was not until

79

December 1958 that the Indonesian parliament legislated formal nationalization of all Dutch corporate assets in the newly independent state (van de Kerkhof, 2005).

The telecommunication service industry was one of the sectors that underwent nationalization, generating a number of important changes. The first was to change the PTT

(Post, Telegraph, and Telephone Office) of the colonial era into the first state-owned telecommunication company (Perusahaan Negara) in 1961 (Budhijanto, 2011). The second was the promulgation of the first telecommunication law, Telecommunication Law Number

5/ 1964. Following the monopoly policy of the colonial government, this law asserted strong control of national state authority (under the authority of the Ministry of Land

Transportation, Post, Telecommunication, and Tourism) over the telecommunication system and industry. In the first part of the law, it was clearly stated that telecommunication was controlled, organized, and regulated by the state (Article 2). In the second part of the law, other elements of telecommunication, such as the implementation of public service telecommunication, tariffs, use priorities, telecommunication equipment installations, and permits for telecommunication services by non-state-owned entities were declared to be entirely under the control of the state authority. This law not only regulated infrastructures and services; it also regulated some aspects of communication content, such as the right of the state to reject and to terminate message transmission (Article 6) and the policing of messages that were considered to be confidential news related to the national interest and national security (Article 22). It is not difficult to discern a clear sense of preservation of state interests, security, and authority in the in the content of the telecommunication law,

80

parallel to the Foucault’s explanation (2009) of the rationality behind the reason of state as a form of governing.

Putting in the larger political circumstances in the post-colonial transition, another conceivable motivation of the strong State control over infrastructure reflected in this

Telecommunication Law was the attempt to maintain the territorial stability in the changing authority from colonial government to a post-colonial national government. In early phase of independence, there were a number of regions with local power that still had not fully submitted to the newly installed national government and still had aspirations for independence of their own. To exert sovereignty and domination over the territory, it was crucial for the state authority to take control of public infrastructures, including telecommunication infrastructure. More fundamentally, one could argue that the strong state control in the Telecommunication Law of 1964 is a reflection of the literal implementation of the National Constitution. The sovereignty over natural resources is distinctly asserted in several articles in the Constitution. Those articles state, “The land, the waters and the natural riches contained therein shall be controlled by the State and exploited to the greatest benefit of the people” (Article 33b); and it further states; “Sectors of production that are important for the country and affect the life of the people shall be controlled by the state” (Article 33c).

It is easy to see that telecommunication was positioned as a domain that is “important and affect[s] the life of the people” and therefore was subject to state control. In sum, the rationality of preservation, protection, and maintenance of state integrity was the main

81

government rationality in early independence and was also extended to the governing of telecommunication.

Now that the Ministry of Land Transportation, Post, Telecommunication, and

Tourism had become the focal actor in governing telecommunication, this Ministry took steps to further manage the sector. For example, in 1965 the Ministry carried out a restructuring of the former PTT to provide better telecommunication services. The PTT, which used to be a combination of post, telegraph, and telephone service in the colonial era, was separated again into two different state-owned companies. The first company, the

National Postal Company (Perusahaan Nasional Pos dan Giro), was in charge of providing postal services. The second company, the National Telecommunication Company

(Perusahaan Nasional Telekomunikasi), was in charge in providing telegraph and telephone services. In 1974, the National Telecommunication Company was further divided into two separate state-owned entities; the first one became Perumtel, a company that provided services in domestic and international telecommunication, and the second company became

PT Inti, a company that was in charge in overseeing the manufacturing of telecommunication equipment (Budhijanto, 2011).

From this tracing of the network of actors in the telecommunication sector during the transition of power from colonial to post-colonial government, we can see a change of focal actor in the network, following the major political turn from colonization to independence. The new Indonesian state authority took the first steps by nationalizing the

PTT as it had existed in colonial times, along with a number of other enterprises, and forming

82

a new state-owned telecommunication institution as well as the Ministry of Transportation to oversee the telecommunication sector. Then, the state legislators issued the first

Telecommunication Law to govern not only infrastructure and service, but also the technical operations and some aspects of communication content. This law indicated that there were

‘other entities’ that might provide telecom services, but my research found little information about these entities and how they worked. The PTT was then further divided into several different companies that provided different services: postal services, telecom services, and telecom equipment manufacturing.

However, there is little evidence to indicate there was a significant expansion of infrastructure during this time (a point that will be explained further in the next section), and telecom services most likely still rely on legacy infrastructure from the colonial PTT. It can also be discerned that the governing of telecommunication services and infrastructure was mainly driven by sense of state preservation and maintenance of state integrity and security.

In the next section, I will examine some of the changes that took place in the telecommunication sector following independence, when the new political constellation began to focus more on economic development and, to some extent, the welfare of the population.

2.5. The political constellation and the governing of telecommunication sector after Indonesian independence

As the network tracing developed in this section will show, the history of telecommunication development in Indonesia cannot be separated from the history of shifting

83

political constellations in the country and, to a certain degree, the history of international political constellations. Not much information is available on telecommunication development in the country under the leadership of the first presidential administration

(around 1949 to 1966). This could be due to the turmoil surrounding the process of transition from colonial power and the process of nationalization, and to the political instability and social turmoil that were still happening around this time.15 After sovereignty had been obtained from the colonial power, the next concern would be to foster economic growth and to improve the welfare of the population. As history records, in the first two decades after independence the Indonesian economy was at its lowest point, with the highest annual inflation (500% to 1,000%) and lowest per-capita income in its history (Wells & Ahmed,

2007). This situation most likely due to low export rates, the growing foreign debt (most likely also consisting of ‘war debt,’ as stipulated in the RTC conference), and the slow growth of the industry (such as 80% of the textile miles in Java were shut down at the time)

(Wells & Ahmed, 2007). The first Indonesian president, Sukarno, championed a “stand-on- your-feet” ideal (famously known as “berdikari,” - stands for “berdiri di atas kaki sendiri” - an acronym that has the same literal meaning as the English expression) that tried to minimize, even to avoid, international involvement in national development, which was not much helping for bringing growth to the economy. Following the nationalization of Dutch

15 For almost two decades after Indonesia gained its sovereignty from the Dutch, Indonesia underwent what is usually referred as the “democratic experiment,” in which the leaders of the country continuously endeavored to find the best-suited political system to accommodate the immensely diverse political, ideological, religious, and ethnic outlooks and values in the country. There was a series of changes in the system of governing, from the colonial transition, to federalism, to a parliamentary system, and to a ‘guided democracy’ system. There were at least 26 cabinets formed around this time, with a short time-span of one to two years of service. This era was marked by political, social, and economic instabilities.

84

firms, the Sukarno government implemented an import-substitution strategy and state ownership of industry (Wells & Ahmed, 2007). In international politic, Sukarno took the polictical position that distanced the country from international communities, to the point of withdrawing from the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.

The Sukarno administration ended with a deadly coup d'état in 1965, following the anti- communism purge and massive killing of the alleged communist followers. The first president of Indonesia eventually lost the political power and was replaced by Suharto, who formally became the second President of Indonesia in 1967.

The newly formed presidential administration took a different approach to promoting economic growth. Instead of closing off the country, Suharto opened the country to foreign investment as well as various types of foreign aid. He immediately reinstated

Indonesia’s membership in a number of international organizations, including the United

Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Indonesia even joined the newly formed Asian Development Bank (ADB). The Suharto administration also successfully secured up to $1 billion in fresh international loans and rescheduled the country’s debt (Wells & Ahmed, 2007). In regards to the somewhat forceful nationalization of a number of Dutch companies in the early days of independence, Suharto sorted out settlements with Dutch investors and in some cases returned property to former owners.

Around the same time, international politics was caught up in the cold war between the USA and the USSR. While Sukarno’s international position had somewhat leaned toward the socialist bloc of China and the USSR during the previous administration, Suharto’s

85

government leaned to the opposite direction (and some argued that the US government was involved in assisting Suharto to gain power his political power and ended up to be the second president of Indonesia). Given the openness of the Suharto administration to foreign aid and

Suharto administration’s anti-communist stance that was aligned with the United State political agenda, the United States government and the World Bank were the ready supporters of the new administration as a part of the anti-communist alliance in the Vietnam

War. Hence, there was a sharp contrast in the economic approaches of the first two

Indonesian governments following independence: whereas Sukarno sought to distance the state from international actors and international connections, Suharto readily embraced international assistance. One of the consequences of this openness to international aid and international investment was greater development of telecommunication infrastructure, and at the same time expanded the network of actors involved in that development.

Suharto continued to welcome new foreign investors to the country, particularly in the telecommunication sector. With an infrastructure that still relied on the colonial legacy, it was evident it would not suffice to facilitate economic growth. For example, dependable international telephone connections to support business and economic activities were almost non-existent (Wells & Ahmed, 2007). Indonesia is an archipelagic country, with more than ten thousand islands stretching 3,200 miles from east to west and about 1,100 miles from north to south; consequently, the new administration perceived there was a real need to build telecommunication infrastructure that could link different regions, particularly the most isolated ones. Needless to say, the construction of telecommunication infrastructure in such a

86

geographical context would require a high-cost financing, and the previous “anti-foreign” approach from Sukarno did not bring much to the infrastructure development. The Suharto administration apparently realized this and immediately seized the first opportunity for foreign investment to build telecom infrastructure not long after the term of his presidency started.

The new administration believed that satellite technology could be just the right answer for the lack of telecommunication infrastructure, particularly considering the problem of international connectivity. This was the moment in which the International Telephone and

Telegraph (ITT), a U.S. telecommunication company, entered the landscape of telecommunication infrastructure building in Indonesia. The presence of ITT in Indonesia, I argue, was an important moment and worth paying attention to for a number of reasons. Not only was ITT a significant international investor in telecommunication infrastructure, it also made an important contribution in the early development of satellite communication, and later on became the foundation of the second state-owned company (Indosat) in the telecommunication market duopoly in Indonesia. ITT investment also shows that, although there was a policy to open the telecom industry for foreign investment, the governing of the telecom sector still retained the logic of protectionism of state control. The information about the ITT investment in this section is taken from Louis T. Wells books entitled Making

Foreign Investment Safe: Property Rights and National Sovereignty (2007). Wells was an

Indonesian government consultant at the time and a professor of Harvard Business School.

He writes about the Indosat acquisition in a great detail, with many of first-hand accounts of

87

what transpired in the negotiation room as well as stories of corruption in the rise of the telecommunication industry in the country. The information from Wells’ writing provides the connection of telecom industry to international institutions, which is important in tracing the network of actors in this research.

Given its desire to establish international connections using satellite technology, the Suharto administration approached the International Telecommunications Satellite Union

(INTELSAT), the organization that regulates international satellite technology. In its periodic meetings, INTELSAT facilitated the Indonesian government’s negotiations with the ITT.

Both parties reached an agreement in which the ITT would invest in building the telecommunication satellite facility and would operate the facility, and after a certain period of time when the ITT was able to achieve a return on its investment, the ITT would return the control of the infrastructure back to the Indonesian government. After the process of hand over, the Indonesian government in turn would lease the facility back to be managed and operated by the ITT (Wells & Ahmed, 2007). The ITT, whom had a great deal of experience in international telecommunication investments, mainly in Latin America16 predicted that the country would go through an economic boom in the next decade, and convinced that investment in Indonesia would be profitable.

16 There were some political scandals surrounding ITT’s attempts to protect its international investments. Wells & Ahmed (2007) mention specifically the political involvement of ITT in Chile in 1970. As they note, “[t]he most blatant and publicized instance of ITT’s involvement in host country politics—and U.S. foreign policy—came a bit later. In 1970, the company tried to enlist the help of the CIA by offering a contribution of $1 million in a plot to prevent the election of the avowed Marxist Salvador Allende to Chile’s presidency. ITT had recognized a common goal: ITT’s ultimate objective was to avert expropriation of the company’s Chilean investments and the United States was intent on blocking the installation of another Marxist regime in Latin America. As it turned out, the CIA probably funneled some $8 million through ITT to anti-Allende groups” (p. 27).

88

Seen from the perspective of Indonesian side, the Suharto administration was successful in enrolling the ITT in this satellite investment plan. The ITT approved the proposal for the construction of the satellite communication system and agreed to make the necessary arrangements for financing the project. The agreement between the Suharto administration and the ITT also stipulated that ITT would build and operate the communication satellite system exclusively for 20 years, during which time the lease payment would be made to the Indonesian government in exchange of tax payment. In addition, the Indonesian government would own the infrastructure from the outset and would commit to providing necessary protections to ITT’s investment (Wells & Ahmed, 2007).

The agreement also included the establishment of PT Indonesia Satellite Corporation, or known as Indosat, as the main company that would oversee the management of the satellite communication system. The project financing involved the American Radio and Cable

Corporation (ACR, an ITT’s subsidiary company), the USAid, and Bank of America (Wells

& Ahmed, 2007). The construction of the satellite ground station in Jatiluhur, West Java, was started in 1968 and completed in 1969.

The presence of the ITT in the Indonesian telecommunication landscape brought more advanced technology, particularly satellite-based technology, to facilitate international communication. Until the establishment of Indosat, the monopoly right to provide telecommunication services was in the hands of Perumtel, the state-owned telephone company (Perusahaan Umum Telepon, see previous section). After Indosat began to operate and handle most of the international communications, the Suharto administration transferred

89

the authority to operate commercial international communication service from Perumtel to

Indosat, even granting a monopoly right to provide international communication connections.

With this monopoly right, Indosat became a highly profitable business. As the history records, Indonesia did indeed experience economic growth during the following 10 years

(just as ITT had predicted)—growth that came largely from the sudden increase in oil export revenues in the 1970s (known as oil boom). The annual rate of GDP growth rose to 9%, inflation dropped to 19%, and industrial output tripled, all of which led to the growth in the traffic of international communication (Wells & Ahmed, 2007). Indosat gained the operating revenue at an average annual rate of 33% for that 10 years period in operation (Wells &

Ahmed, 2007). The ITT was able to contribute to a $17-million Indonesia–Singapore submarine cable, which was part of the regional economic project of the Association of

South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) economic ministers. It seems that this international investment proved to be a successful enterprise that yielded mutual benefit to the ITT and to

Indonesia; the ITT gained a large profit from its investment, just as it had expected, and

Indonesia was able to have reliable international communication service to support its economic activities and economic growth.

This mutually beneficial arrangement began to change in 1979. It was triggered when Suharto asked Indosat’s view on the subject related to the building of a submarine cable between the city of Medan, North Sumatera, and the city of Penang, across the Malaka

Strait. This infrastructure-building plan served not only telecommunication purposes, but also the Suharto administration’s political aim of strengthening diplomatic ties between Indonesia

90

and Malaysia (Wells & Ahmed, 2007). However, the ITT leadership saw this plan as an expensive investment with low potential annual revenue and stated that it was “not economically viable” (Wells & Ahmed, 2007, p. 47). But, ITT added, if Indosat were to be involved in the investment, the ITT would participate with two stipulations. First, ITT demanded extension of the contract beyond the initial 20 years. Second, ITT demanded renegotiation of the concession to Perumtel, which previously had succeeded to demand

Indosat to obtain a partial share of as much as 15% of revenue from inbound and outbound international call services. Perumtel claimed this revenue was needed to provide local services, which were needed to establish international call, and argued that Perumtel also contributed in the collection of tolls from subscribers. The ITT demanded the renegotiation of this concession if Indosat was going to be involved in the Medan–Penang submarine cable investment.

Suharto was not happy with this situation—not only with the ITT response, but also with the fact that the Suharto administration had to rely on ITT’s power and its cooperation in order to carry out its international policy. To some degree, it might be viewed as a threat to state integrity by a foreign power. Hence, the Suharto administration’s attempt, as the focal actor in Indonesia’s telecom infrastructure, to enroll the ITT in the plan for establishing the new submarine cable system, was unsuccessful. The ITT, whom had more capital power to enable the investment of Indonesia-Malaysia cable system, used it as a bargaining position to demand more power and control over its investment in the country.

Unless these demands were answered, the new cable system project was deemed unattractive

91

by the ITT. And if indeed the ITT had knowledge of the Suharto administration’s political motivations behind the project (to strengthen the diplomatic tie with Malaysia), it seemed that the ITT did not want to partake in Suharto’s international political agenda. However, the

Suharto administration would take a different approach to overcome ITT’s reluctance, even if it meant stripping the ITT of its power over telecommunication infrastructure in Indonesia.

The Suharto administration began to put together a clandestine strategy for taking over Indosat from ITT and seizing all its assets. Suharto assigned the Minister of State for

Administrative Reform (who was also the Deputy Chairman of the Development Planning

Board (MNDP), J. B. Sumarlin, to “take care” the problem with the ITT (Wells & Ahmed,

2007). Sumarlin was a high-profile economist and politician educated at a U.S. university and also a member of the group of Indonesian economic architects known as the “Berkeley

Mafia” (because members of the group were educated in the University of California in

Berkeley). He also had a vision of integrating the expanding telecommunication infrastructure. Sumarlin quietly assembled a team to carry out the Indosat acquisition, including telecommunication experts from the Indonesian side and several international expert consultants (including Wells). The ITT, whom was still not aware of the move, got caught up belatedly in the acquisition process. The Indonesian acquisition team had answers to every possible move by the ITT, and the company soon realized it had been defeated.

(Wells even recounted that ITT tried to contact the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta to ask for political support, but given the sensitivity of the cold war context, the U.S. government was reluctant to provide any political intervention). The ITT eventually conceded their loss and

92

relinquished control of Indosat to the Suharto administration. The acquisition process took only about five months. ITT settled the final arrangement on December 30, 1980, and Indosat formally belonged to the government of Indonesia as of January 1, 1981.

The tracing of actors in this section reveals emerging connections to important new actors in the course of development of telecom infrastructure, including the connection to a number of international actors (such as the World Bank, the IMF, INTELSAT, ITT, the

U.S. government, Bank of America, international consultants, etc.). We can also note the genesis of a new actor, Indosat (whom would be a major actor in telecommunication sector later on), and the emplacement of a new technological actor, the satellite communication system. These networked connections enabled the movement of the material of satellite technology from the US to Indonesia and established the capacity of the satellite system to connect communication from a particular geographical location in Indonesia to many different places around the world, and therefore, to support activities that would increase economic growth.

These networked connections also reveal the multi-path fluidity of non-physical elements, such as managerial skills, telecommunication knowledge, and economic knowledge, from Dutch managers to Indonesian workers, from US universities to Indonesian bureaucrats, from ITT corporate officers to Indonesian Indosat officers. These diverse networked connections also show important links to political dynamics, including the change in state politic from the first presidential administration to the second one, the cold war between the USA and the USSR, and the political situation in Southeast Asia (between

93

Indonesia and Malaysia). These heterogeneous arrangements of human and nonhuman actors and physical and non-physical entities, as well as the continual placement, displacement, and translations of actors, demonstrate that infrastructure development involves a precarious assembling and reassembling of many different entities—an arrangement that could change at any time depending on the movement of actors, and one in which the Suharto administration played the role of focal actor.

The network tracing in this section also shows there was a shift in the focus of governing telecommunication sector, from maintaining sovereignty over territory and maintaining integrity of the state to producing economic development and establishing the welfare of the population. Foucault (2009) indicated a similar shifting in governing rationality when he discussed the notion of ‘State’s forces’ as a development of govermentality of State. He argued, “[t]he real problem of this new governmental rationality is not therefore just the preservation of the state within a general order so much as the preservation of a relation of forces; it is the preservation, maintenance, or development of a dynamic of forces” (p. 383). Foucault identified a number of different forms of State’s forces in separate parts of his lecture, which included the population, the army, the natural resources, production, commerce, monetary circulation, the size of territory, the State’s wealth, etc. The knowledge of statistic became essential in the calculation of State forces since it provided knowledge of elements of these different forces, to which Foucault asserted,

“[s]tatistics is the state’s knowledge of the state, understood as the state’s knowledge both of itself and also of other states” (p. 411). Foucault further argued that States create two great

94

technological assemblages to manage these dynamic State forces: the first is a military- diplomatic apparatus, and the second is the apparatus of the police. The apparatus of police is relevant to this research, for Foucault defined police as “…the set of interventions and means that ensure that living, better than just living, coexisting will be effectively useful to the constitution and development of the state’s forces” (p. 421). Hence the governance of telecommunication infrastructure at this time was strongly guided by the rationality of preserving and maintaining state forces.

The governing rationality, then, mutated from a concern for state preservation to a concern for the calculation of State forces through the police, placing the focus on the well- being of the population and the integration of the population’s activities into the relations of the state. Governmental management of a population’s well-being involves a wide variety of details, including the management of the size of the population (in relation to the size of the territory, natural recourses, wealth, etc.); the provision of food and other basic needs; the problem of health; occupations or population activity; and the circulation of goods, including material instruments and infrastructures (Foucault, 2009). If we follow this Foucault’s explanation, we can see the development of telecommunication infrastructure analyzed in this section as a manifestation of a shifting rationality of governing with an increasing emphasis on population well-being. Statistical data such as GDP growth, inflation rates, size of the territory, and the economic performance of neighboring countries became important forms of knowledge used by the Suharto administration to understand the current situation of the country and to improve population welfare. The government’s intervention into the

95

telecommunication sector, to open it and to bring in foreign investment to boost infrastructure development, was fundamental to increasing the circulation of goods to support population well being. To some extent, however, the opening of the telecom sector was still marked by strong state control, with the retention of market control through a duopoly strategy. Perumtel and Indosat, with their exclusive rights to operate telecommunication services, were the extension the state’s hands in controlling the telecom service and infrastructure. This situation soon changed with the wave of liberalization that found its way to the country as will be explained in the next section.

2.6. The First Movements toward Telecommunication Deregulation

Deregulation is generally understood as a move to relax or reduce state restrictions or controls over a particular sector. It is usually concurrent with regulatory reform to simplify existing regulation to make it more effective. Reducing state control can also mean allowing a certain degree of ‘freedom’ for private entities to become involved in the public sector, which then leads to the general idea of a parallel between deregulation and liberalization. These phenomena characterized the development of Indonesia’s telecommunication sector from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s. These changes indicated another shift in governing rationality in relation to the previous era, which had been characterized by strong state control over the telecom sector. In tracing the telecommunication actor-network in this section, I will examine a number of existing writings that indicated the ineffectiveness of the duopoly system and the strong state control in the attempts to expand the telecommunication infrastructure, and to increase the

96

population’s access to telecommunication services. As these writings show, the slow development of the sector eventually led the Suharto administration to release its the State full control of telecommunication sector and to open the sector to the participation of private entities. In this section, then, I will examine how this change came about, I will point out two important moments of deregulation, and I will consider the expansion of the network of actors as a result of the change. The key moments of this process were; 1) the promulgation of the Telecommunication Law of 1989, which relaxed state control over the telecom sector; and 2) the public offering of shares of state-owned companies on the international stock market. These moves toward deregulation policy, later on, would be taken further with the passing of the Telecommunication Law of 1999 as a consequence of economic crisis and

IMF prescriptions.

With the acquisition of Indosat, Indonesia had two state-owned telecommunication companies to oversee telecom services: Perumtel, with a monopoly over local and long-distance telephone services; and Indosat, with a monopoly over international telephone services. However, even with these two state-owned companies in place, the telecommunication sector was still perceived could not developed fast enough, and Indonesia still lagged behind its fellow ASEAN members (Sugondo & Bhinekawati, 2004). Teledensity

(number of telephone connections per capita) was still very low. Moreover, the disparity of teledensity between Java and the rest of the country still remained high. One of the main problems was limited funding. Up until 1989, the main financial source for telecommunication infrastructure was still the state budget, often supported by soft loans

97

from international donors, such as Japan’s Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF) and the Consultative Group of Indonesia (CGI, previously known as Inter-governmental

Group of Indonesia, IGGI) (Sugondo & Bhinekawati, 2004). To expand the telecommunication sector and accelerate development, private and foreign investments were deemed necessary by Suharto administration as an alternative to strong state control and monopoly that was still in place (Sugondo & Bhinekawati, 2004).

The opening of the market was driven not only by the domestic situation; it was also influenced by the situation outside the country. The wave of privatization of public services had gained momentum internationally since late 1970s, particularly among industrial countries (Ito & Krueger, 2001). The main concern pushing this movement forward was the question of efficiency and the effectiveness of the state-owned enterprises. There was also a motive to gain more revenues from privatization to reduce the state deficit and to lower the inflation rate (Ito & Krueger, 2001). Furthermore, as Wells and Ahmed (2006) asserted, the privatization in Indonesian telecommunication industry in late 1980s was influenced by the

Washington Consensus, an economic policy prescription for developing countries promoted by Washington-based economic institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the US Treasury Department. The prescription included trade liberalization, privatization, deregulation, and liberalization of foreign investment, among others (Williamson, 2004).17 Amidst this international economic situation, Indonesia, with its

17 These economic prescriptions drew many critics (from Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein, among others) who saw these changes as a new kind of exploitation of labor markets in underdeveloped economies by companies based in more developed economies. Other critics argued that this consensus was a covert strategy to expand the holdings of big corporations, who were eager to expand into new markets and to build their

98

high degree of dependency on the World Bank, the IMF, and other international aid organizations from the beginning of the Suharto administration, was pushed to privatize many of its state-owned enterprises, including the telecommunication companies.

With the lack of development in domestic telecom infrastructure and the increasing influence of liberalization from outside the country, the Suharto administration moved to deregulate the telecommunication sector by enacting a new telecommunication law, Telecommunication Law No. 3/1989. The key change brought by this new law was the inclusion of private participation in telecommunication industry. The state authority still held the control over telecommunication, but its role shifted from full control to a position described as “to counsel” or “to advise” (in Indonesian, ‘pembinaan’) the telecom sector

(Article 4). The government would no longer be positioned as a player in telecommunication industry, but rather as a regulator or administrator of the telecommunication sector. The operation of the telecom services was trusted to two “Operating Bodies” (in Indonesian,

Badan Penyelenggara) (Article 12).18 The private enterprises were recognized as “Other

Bodies” (in Indonesian, Badan Lain). This law also distinguished two categories of telecommunication services: 1) basic telecommunication services, which included telephone, telex, telegram and cellular mobile services; and 2) non-basic telecommunication services,

influence by controlling larger portions of the international networks. In other words, the Washington Consensus push was also an expression of the crisis of capitalism and capitalism’s “need” to expand into new arenas of investment and profit. 18 Looking into the detail of implementation of this new law, the opening of the telecom sector to private entities also included a set of restrictions and limitations. For example, “Operating Bodies” that had the authority to provide essential telecom services were still in the hand of Perumtel and Indosat, while the “Other Bodies” (i.e., private enterprises) were limited to providing non-basic telecom services. If private enterprises wished to provide basic services, they were obligated to do so in partnership or cooperation with either Perumtel or Indosat.

99

which included paging, trunking, internet service, and other value-added services (Sugondo

& Bhinekawati, 2004; Limanto & Kosuge, 2005). However, even with the increasing participations of private enterprises, there were still a number of restrictions applied for these private entities, particularly in providing the types of services, which had to be in the of forms of partnerships with state-owned companies (as the Operating Bodies).19 The policy of telecom deregulation, therefore, was still full of restrictions and limitations. This development to some extends echoing Foucault’s idea that indicated, the production of

‘freedom’ in liberal governmentality (or liberal way of governing) entailed the management of freedom through the establishment of certain forms of control, limitation, and obligation

(2008).

From the perspective of transnational corporations and the Washington

Consensus, this deregulation policy seemed to bring positive signs to development of telecommunication in the country. Although they had to conduct business in the form of joined venture with local companies, a number of these transnational corporations were allowed to conduct business and took part in the previously closed market. Despite of such restricted entry, private enterprises were thriving in this first wave of telecom liberalization.

Directorate General Post and Telecommunication (DGPT), the government body for regulating the telecom sector, reported that by 1999 there were 10 trunk operators (mainly

19 Forms of partnership were also regulated by law and were limited to three different types: a) joint venture schemes; (b) joint operation schemes (or kerja sama operasi - KSO), and c) revenue sharing agreements (as stated in the Government Regulation No. 8/ 1993). There was also a restriction regarding the types of partnership scheme allowed to provide certain services. For example, if private enterprises intended to provide domestic fixed-lined service, they could only do so through a joint-operation scheme. If private enterprises intended to provide mobile services, they could only do so under either a revenue-sharing scheme or a joint- venture scheme (Sugondo & Bhinekawati, 2004.

100

providing service for corporate clients), 40 paging operators, and more than 100 internet service providers (Sugondo & Bhinekawati, 2004; Lee & Findlay, 2005).

Another notable impact of the first move in telecom deregulation in Indonesia was the partnership of Perumtel (later Telkom, following the privatization of 1991) with five private telecommunication consortia to build infrastructure that provided fixed-line domestic telephone services under the joint operation scheme or known as Kerjasama Operasi (KSO)

(Lee & Findlay, 2005). These partnerships were joint-venture enterprises between Indonesian private firms and foreign telecom operators from Singapore, Japan, Australia, and France. In these partnerships, Indonesia territory was divided into seven operational divisions (or

Regional Divisions)20, with the five partners managing and operating services outside Java and the relatively less-developed areas in Java. These partnerships were deemed important for the expansion of the telecommunication infrastructure, particularly in the building of fixed-line telephone lines. The content of the agreement, which assigned a certain target for building fixed lines in less-developed regions, particularly outside Java, helped to increase fixed-line teledensity at a steady pace over the following decade (Lee & Findlay, 2005).

Nevertheless, the indication of disparity was still apparent in the division of operational territory in the partnership. While the smaller geographical territory of Java was divided in

20The seven Regional Divisions of Telkom were: Division I, Sumatera; Division II, Jakarta and surrounding areas; Division III, West Java; Division IV, Central Java and D.I. Yogjakarta; Division V, East Java; Division VI, Kalimantan; Division VII, Eastern parts of Indonesia. The partners had obligation to build a certain number of new lines and installations according to a target that had been agreed upon beforehand with Telkom. In return, Telkom granted exclusive rights for 15 years to each partner to operate telecom service and to generate profit. By the end of the contract, partners were expected to transfer all assets to Telkom.

101

four operational divisions, the rest of the territory, which included four islands larger than

Java and thousands of smaller islands, were divided into three operational divisions.

This telecommunication deregulation conducted by the Suharto administration seems to lead to growth not only in fixed-line infrastructure, but also in cellular mobile operations. By 1994 there were three cellular mobile communication systems operating in the country (Sugondo & Bhinekawati, 2004).21 These three cellular systems were utilized by private telecom companies under joint-venture schemes with Telkom and Indosat to provide mobile service in a competitive market. The market of GSM 900 grew especially quickly as it brought more international investment into the industry. The deregulation in mobile telecommunication brought investment from a number of big players in the international telecom market, including DeTeMobile, a German telecom company (the same company associated with T-mobile brand); and NYNEX (a U.S. company that later became Verizon telecom company) (Sugondo & Bhinekawati, 2004).22

The Suharto administrations deregulation policy not only opened the telecom sector to private enterprises; it also privatized state-owned companies by offering shares of those companies in the stock market. Perumtel officially became PT Telkom with a new

21 The three mobile systems included the AMPS system and NMT 450 system (analog technologies for cellular phone known first generation, or 1G,cellular networks), and the GSM system, a second-generation (2G) digital cellular network. 22 Deregulation brought development in the mobile market, which included Satelindo that was previously only owned by Telkom, Indosat, and Bimagraha acquired investment from DeTeMobile, a German telecom company. Other GSM service providers, Excelcomindo and Telkomsel, brought more international investment, such as NYNEX, Mitsui & Co (one of the biggest trading company in Japan), AIF Capital (a private equity firm based in Hongkong), and PTT Telecom BV (a telecom company in The Hague, Netherlands).

102

status as a state-owned limited-liability cooperation (LLC) in 1991.23 Although the privatization of two state-owned companies reduced the State control over telecommunication sector in a relative sense, the Suharto administration still maintained authority as the majority shareholder of both Telkom and Indosat. The administration also took some protective measures to safeguard the three state-owned companies from market competition by giving exclusive rights to Telkom to provide fixed-line basic local services for 15 years (1996-2010) and fixed-line domestic long-distance services for 10 years (1996-

2005), and by granting Indosat and Satelindo the right to provide international communication services for 10 years (1995-2004) (Sugondo & Bhinekawati, 2004; Lee &

Findlay, 2005).

All in all, these deregulation policy from the Suharto administration were perceived to able to produce telecommunication infrastructure expansion and growth in services in Indonesia, just as the intention of the policy. Again, statistical data were used to

23 The Suharto administration also obtained more money (up to US$1.077 billion) from the initial public offering (IPO) of Indosat, in which 25% of the shares were sold in the New York Stock Exchange and 10% in the Jakarta Stock Exchange in 1994. Telkom followed the IPO move, with its shares selling on the New York, Jakarta, and London Stock Exchanges (Sugondo & Bhinekawati, 2004). Around the same time, the government authorized the formation of the third Operating Body, PT. Satelindo. This company took control over three domestic satellites that were previously operated by Telkom to provide international services and introduced mobile GSM-based (Global System for Mobile communication) services. P.T. Satelindo was partly a joint venture between two state-owned companies, with Telkom contributing 30% of the shares and Indosat 10% of the shares. The rest of the shares belonged to Bimagraha Group (60%), which was founded and owned mostly by one of the Suharto’s sons (Sugondo & Bhinekawati, 2004; Lee & Findlay, 2005). Although the formation of this third Operating Body was justified using the rhetoric of market deregulation, it was understood among many Indonesians this formation was also tied to the nepotism in Suharto’s administration, which at that time provided Suharto’s children with control over a number of government projects (Sugondo & Bhinekawati, 2004).

103

provide knowledge of both the performance of State itself and the performance of other

States (Foucault, 2009). Teledensity reports from the Ministry of Transportation showed that the growth of fixed-lined infrastructure had almost doubled in a period of six years (Sugondo

& Bhinekawati, 2004). According to annual reports from Telkom and Indosat, teledensity in the country had increased from 1.28% in 1994 to 3.1% in 2000. Teledensity in mobile cellular service also grew, from only 0.04% in 1994 to 1.50% in 2000 (Sugondo &

Bhinekawati, 2004). However, as Sugondo & Bhinekawati (2004) asserted, despite these increases in teledensity, the overall result of the first telecommunication liberalization in

Indonesia was considered still “behind” in relation to neighboring ASEAN countries. In

1990, the telecom sectors of Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines were relatively similar. By 2002, however, Vietnam had surpassed Indonesia in fixed-line teledensity, and the Philippines and Thailand had outperformed Indonesian mobile teledensity by a factor of two (Lee & Findlay, 2005). This comparison indicates that, despite the first deregulation policy, the telecom sector in the country was still not seen as moving fast enough.

It can be seen that the deregulation policy enacted by the Suharto administration inevitably added more actors and expanded the Indonesian actor network of telecom infrastructure development. As the focal actor, the Suharto administration was able to interest and enroll other actors through the establishment of the new telecommunication law. The opportunity for companies to expand and generate larger profits became the point of interessement of the new actors, which consisted of a large number of private enterprises,

104

both domestic and international. A number of partnership mechanisms, such as joint ventures, joint operations, revenue-sharing agreements, and stock ownership in state companies, were designed to enroll actors and to lock them into the telecom sector network.

This deregulation policy also emplaced more technological actors in the network, including a number of new telephone fixed lines for domestic communication, particularly outside Java island; and new mobile communication technologies (AMPS and NMT 450 system, 1G and

2G for GSM system). The new telecommunication law, then, became an obligatory point of passage enabling contributions from private enterprises as well as the integration of new technological entities into the network of infrastructure development.

Furthermore, the network tracing presented in this section shows the efforts of the Suharto administration in calculating the balance between governing too much and too little.

Governing too much had brought slow infrastructure development with low levels of access to telecom services for the population. Relaxing state control through deregulation was deemed necessary to bring more capital needed to boost infrastructure development. At the same time, however, the Suharto administration was cautious about governing too little, so it retained some control over the telecom sector through the possession of major shares in newly privatized state-owned companies. The administration also retained control through the protection of exclusive rights of the state-owned companies and through a set of regulations to limit the private-enterprise contributions in the telecom sector. These concerns about governing too much or too little, or governing between a maximum and minimum, which lead to the consideration of opening the telecommunication market that would be the

105

generator of a natural or normal price through supply and demand (or the market as “the site of truth” (Foucault, 2008, p. 30)) illustrate what Foucault referred to as “frugality of government” (2008). This consideration led to the emergence of liberalism as a government rationality, which began to arise in the middle of the eighteen century (Foucault, 2008).

On the contrary to some views that consider the liberal governing is in opposition to the reason of State governing because it attempted to place boundaries on the potentially unlimited rationality of reason of State, Foucault (2009) argued that liberal governing should not bee seen as a contradiction of the reason of State, rather Foucault argued it should be seen as “… a sort of intensification or internal refinement of raison d’État; it is a principle for maintaining it, developing it more fully, and perfecting it” (p. 28). In conjunction with the self-limitation of government, an intellectual instrument or a type of calculation known as political economy began to develop. Foucault explained the connection between political economy and the problem of government through the way the market was treated as a site of veridiction or “a site of verification-falsification for governmental practice” because “it pointed out to government where it had to go to find the principle of truth of its own governmental practice” (p. 32). It was tied to the idea that market is the site where the mechanism of formation of ‘natural price’ or ‘good price’ took place. Thus, there was a conviction that, if the market were allowed to function naturally without intervention in market mechanisms, it could reveal something like the truth or the natural truth. This understanding, which positioned the market as quasi-natural reality where the truth could be found, led to the rise of laissez-faire market economies, whose principles had to be respected by the government. Ironically, this meant that the government had to create the necessary

106

regulations to allow “natural” market principles function (Dean, 2010).

In the case of the Indonesian telecom sector in late 1980s, however, the balance between governing too much or too little did not lead to a free, laissez-faire telecom sector.

What can be seen from the deregulation policy was an initial opening of the telecom sector

(or a certain degree of freedom in market) that was followed by renewed intervention of the state in the form of regulatory actions. These regulatory actions did not intervene in the market directly through price controls or public investments, but they did intervene in the conditions of the market to enable an increase in the supply of telecom service to the population, and the reduced prices of service. The application of deregulation in the telecom sector combined with intervention from the State showed the indications of neoliberal governing rationality, which sought to exercise power using market principles. It did not led to the establishment a full laissez-faire ‘free’ market economy without State control; but it maintained vigilant, continuous, and active intervention from the state (Foucault, 2008), with some degree of influence of the international organizations such as the World Bank and the

IMF. This influence became more forceful later on when Indonesia faced economic crisis, which led to further telecommunication market liberalization, as explained in the next section.

2.7. The Second Movement for More Liberalized Telecommunication Sector

After the first movement of deregulation in Indonesia that opened the telecom sector to private enterprises and partially privatizing state-owned companies, the second

107

movement of restructuration was soon occur, catalyzed by an economic crisis that paralyzed the country’s economy. According to the Letter of Intent (LOI) from the Indonesian government to the IMF, this massive economic crisis was partially brought on by “import monopolies that impeded economic efficiency and competitiveness” as well as “the rapid expansion of the financial system since the late 1980s that left a number of banks with significant amounts of nonperforming loans, straining their liquidity and, in some cases, undermining their financial viability” (LOI to IMF, 1997). This economic crisis led Indonesia to acquire external debt up $140 billion (about 60% of GDP) (LOI to IMF, 1997). This crisis affected not only the economy; but it also induces political and social crises in the country.

Riots induced by racial sentiments took place in a number of cities, resulting in a political reform movement that overthrew the Suharto regime, which had reigned for 32 years.

As a way to stabilize the economy, the Indonesian government entered a three- year Stand-by Arrangement with the IMF for US$ 10 billion (IMF, 2000). The IMF funding was accompanied by a reform package—a set of prescriptions for monetary, fiscal, and structural reforms to be pursued by the government. Among policy reform frameworks was the restructuration of state-owned enterprises in various sectors, including telecommunication. In the subsequent Letter of Intent to the IMF in November 1998, the government specifically mentioned the plan to introduce a new telecommunication law as a part of the restructuration of state-owned telecom enterprises (LOI to IMF, 1998). Prior to the passing of the new telecommunication law, the government issued the Blueprint of

Telecommunication Policy in Indonesia, which highlighted some important aspects of these

108

changes—most notably, that Indonesia would be part of the global trade regime regulated through the WTO.

In this section, I will trace two different networks that coalesced in shaping the deepening liberalization of the political economy of telecom in Indonesia. The first network was the international initiative to liberalize the service market through WTO agreements. The second was the network of the telecommunication sector itself, which was further extended after the passing of the Telecommunication Law 1999 (which still applies today). The tracing of these two networks is important if we are to understand the movement of actors as well as the different forms of technology composing the network of telecom sector. The tracing will also show the ways in which the flows of government rationality and power negotiations shaped the telecom sector and infrastructure.

The network of GATS/WTO in the liberalization of the international telecommunication market

In 1997, Indonesia’s delegation, along with delegations from seventy other World

Trade Organization (WTO) member countries, signed an agreement that was known as the

Agreement of Basic Telecommunication (ABT). The ABT was a commitment to open their respective domestic telecom markets for liberalization and to lift restrictions on foreign investment. This agreement was the result of a long process of multinational negotiations known as the Uruguay Round, which took place from 1986 to 1994. One of the proposals discussed in the Uruguay Round was the initiative to regulate intellectual property as well as trade in services, such as tourism and telecommunication. Prior to this forum, GATT (which

109

later became the WTO) was mainly focused on international trade in goods, with little emphasis on trade in services (Fredebeul-Krein & Freytag, 1995). With the advancement of telecommunication technology and growth in the international network of telecommunication services, there was a drive for more liberal telecom markets around the world. This push came particularly from the US and from other WTO member countries that had more developed telecom technologies and markets. Market access had become a central issue in the forum because until then, the telecommunication markets of most of the member countries were still monopolistic and dominated by state-owned enterprises.

For the Indonesia telecom sector (as well as for other member states), an important consequence of signing the WTO agreement was the binding commitment to ratify the regulatory principles listed in the ‘Reference Paper.’ These principles emphasized the effort to reduce the domination of state-owned enterprises and to create competitive conditions in the national regulatory framework (Blouin, 2000). The Reference Paper contained six regulatory principles: (1) competitive safeguard, which aimed to prevent anti- competitive practices in telecommunication, including anti-competitive cross-subsidization;

(2) interconnection, which aimed to ensure that users of one telecommunication provider would be able to communicate with users of other providers; (3) universal services, which was mostly defined as a compensation for the incumbent provider to build infrastructure in revenue-losing areas (Henderson, Gentle, and Ball, 2005) in order to provide greater access and diminish disparities in telecommunication services in isolated areas; (4) public availability licensing criteria, which aimed to ensure that, if a license for providing

110

telecommunication services was required, the criteria, the time frame of the issuance, the terms and conditions, and the reasons for rejection should be made available to public; (5) independent regulator, a principle that aimed to encourage the independence of telecommunication regulators; and (6) allocation and use of scarce resources, which sought to ensure transparency and non-discrimination in the use of scarce resources, such as spectrum allocation, for telecommunication services (NGBT Reference Paper, 1996).24

The WTO agreement was not without criticisms, including the contention that the application of the agreement was facilitating and intensifying a mercantilist attitude of the industrial countries, particularly the United States. Furthermore, there was an imbalance of power in negotiating the interests of different nation-states in the WTO forum. Many developing countries were considered to have inadequate experience in international negotiations in discerning the long-term effects of the agreement endorsed by industrial countries (Finger and Noguee, 2002). Another criticism was that this kind of WTO agreement put small and developing countries in a weak and difficult position, because even if they said ‘no’ to the new agreement, they could not maintain the status quo, since they would be losing the protection of the old agreement (Finger and Noguee, 2002). Despite these criticisms, the agreement was eventually accepted and applied in many countries, including Indonesia. In Indonesia specifically, virtually all of the points from the Reference

Letter were adopted in the new Telecommunication Law as part of the economic recovery plan prescribed by the IMF, which will be discussed in the next subsection.

24 The Reference Paper is available online at: [https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/telecom_e/tel23_e.htm] (accessed October 2015)

111

The formation and enactment of the new Telecommunication Law of 1999

After signing the GATS agreement in 1994 and the ABT in 1997, as well as committing to open-market access for foreign investment as part of the ABT agreement, the administration of President Wahid25 issued the Blueprint on Telecommunications, which would become the foundation of the new Telecommunication Law No. 36/ 1999. Some important specific details in this blueprint were: 1) to move away from monopolistic practices toward a more competitive market; 2) to protect investment security through increasing transparency in regulatory processes; 3) to facilitate the creation of new job opportunities for Indonesians in the telecommunication market through market and industrial expansion; 4) to open opportunities for international cooperation to national telecommunication providers; 5) to open more business opportunities for various kinds of companies, including small and medium-size enterprises and co-op enterprises; and 6) to improve telecommunication sector performance to be able to face global economic trends as indicated by multilateral organizations, such as WTO, APEC, AFTA (Blueprint Telecom

Policy, 1997). Following the issuance of this blueprint, the Wahid administration sent the new telecommunication bill to Parliament in April 1999. Still under the economic recovery program prescribed by IMF, the Parliament only took two weeks to discuss the bill and then passed it immediately. The bill became the new telecommunication law in August 1999

(Pandjaitan, 2006). In retrospect, some argued that the passing of the Law was too hasty—

25 The Wahid government was the successor to the Suharto administration, which had been brought down during the economic crisis in 1998.

112

that the bill was not thoroughly discussed and scrutinized, leaving out many details in the governing of telecomunication sector (Pandjaitan, 2006).

The new telecommunication law brought some important changes in the telecom sector in the country. First, the monopoly (or duopoly) practice was abolished, and the telecom market was open to any private enterprises to provide any type of telecomunication service. The law defined three layers of services that could be provided in the telecom market, open to either state-owned or private enterprises: 1) telecommunication network provision; 2) telecommunication service provision; and 3) special telecommunication operation (which included telecommunication services for navigation, aviation, search and rescue, meteorological and geophysics, amateur radio, and communicational for national and local governmental purpose) (Article 7). The law ended the exclusive right of Telkom and

Indosat, which have the status as the Operating Bodies under the previous law. In addition, the new law explicitly prohibited any type of monopoly practices and unfair competition

(Article 10).

The second key change was the establishment of an independent regulatory body that would facilitate public and stakeholder participations as well as ensure transparency, independency, and fairness in telecommunication networks and service operations. This regulatory body, together with the government, would be involved in formulating policies and regulations and in supervising telecommunication networks and service operations. The detailed tasks of this body included 1) issuing licenses to network and service providers; 2) establishing standards of operations, standards of service quality, and standards for

113

telecommunication equipment; 3) determining interconnection costs; 4) supervising market competition; and 5) conducting dispute settlement among network and service providers

(Ministerial Decree No. 31/ 2003). The third important change under the new law was the licensing mechanism to govern the participation in the telecommunication market. With more players about to enter the market, the licensing mechanism became the method to assess the feasibility of each business. It also served as a standard procedure for entering the market.

According to Article 11 of the Law, the Ministry of Communication and Information

Technology (MCIT) had the authority for granting licenses to telecommunication network providers and service providers.

The fourth key change was the establishment of the Universal Service Obligation for both telecommunication network providers and service providers (Article 16). The Law defined the obligation as provision of telecommunication infrastructure and ‘other compensation’ to provide good-quality telecommunication infrastructure in geographically remote areas and economically underdeveloped regions in the country at a reasonable price.

This obligation applied to any telecommunication provider that had a license for providing long-distance telephone service and local telephone service. ‘Other compensation’ was defined as a contribution to covering the cost of interconnection. Hence, even though there was no specific regulation of universal service recommended in the WTO Reference Paper, the Indonesian government defined it as the provision of telecommunication infrastructure

(mainly telephony infrastructure) in remote and underdeveloped regions. Looking closely at both the telecommunication blueprint and the new Telecommunication Law, it is evident in

114

both documents that there was a close adoption of the regulatory principles of the WTO

Reference Paper. The principles of competition, licensing mechanism, and independent regulation, which had not existed in the previous monopoly market, were enforced to form a new kind of competitive market. These fundamental changes can be seen as an indication of the strong influence of the IMF in determining the new formulation of the Indonesian telecom market and the relatively weak position of the state authority to uphold its control over the telecom sector.

The changes made through the new Telecommunication Law furthered the market restructuration that had been initiated in the late 1980s. In addition to bringing more private enterprises into the sector, the law also freed state-owned companies from previous restrictions. For example, Telkom was able to obtain a new license for direct international connection (although it was not until 2004). At the same time while Indonesia still run some parts of the 1999 IMF reform package for economic recovery, the administration President

Megawati (the successor of the Wahid administration) sold almost all of its shares in Indosat

(as much as 41.49%) to Singapore Technology Telemedia (STT). Hence, from its previous status as a state-owned enterprise, Indosat became a foreign-dominated enterprise. This move drew much public criticism, mainly concerned with the decreasing of the State control over telecommunication, which many perceived as not ‘nationalist’ enough. One could make argument to oppose this perception, but one thing is certain: this action indicated a significant decline of government participation as a player in the national telecommunication industry.

The surge of private investment that brought many players into the Indonesian

115

telecommunication sector was further expanding the mobile communication market. These new players not only expanded services; they brought with them new mobile communication technologies with different radio frequency requirements. The development of the mobile telecom market in recent years will be explored further in Chapter 4. The expansion in mobile telecom market was not mirrored by the growth in the fixed-line service market. With the collapse of the previous partnership between Telkom and a number of private consortia following the termination of Telkom’s exclusive right to provide fixed-line service, private and foreign investments left the fixed-line market, bringing the control in this sector back to

Telkom. Telkom domination of fixed-line infrastructure in most parts of Indonesia seemed to make private enterprise somewhat reluctant to enter this dominated market. More recent development in this market will be discussed in Chapter 3, which focuses on the Palapa Ring project and also discusses fixed-line infrastructure.

A mapping of these two different networks - the international network of the

WTO forum, and the network of the restructured Indonesian telecom sector – reveals a wide array of actors and actions that contributed to shaping Indonesian telecommunication sector at the present. There was also another network of actors that emerge in relation to the cause of the 1997 Southeast Asian economic crisis, but the analysis of that network is beyond the scope of this research. Suffice it to say that the economic crisis was the prime reason for the

Suharto administration, as the focal actor in the telecom sector network at that point, to seek

IMF assistance for the economic recovery endeavor. In order to enroll the IMF and incorporate its aid into the network, however, a number of actions had to be taken by Suharto

116

administration (and the subsequent administrations of President Wahid and President

Megawati), which had been formulated and documented formally in the WTO Agreement of

Basic Telecommunication (ABT) and its Reference Paper. This Reference Paper, then, moved from one network to another and become the point of connection between two different networks. The movement of discourse enabled by the WTO Reference Paper indicates that it served as an immutable mobile, an element that allows the displacement of knowledge between different places while still maintaining its characteristics, just as numbers, tables, and charts produced by scientists in a laboratory can be easily and conveniently moved without moving all the paraphernalia that produced the numbers and the charts (Latour, 1987). Needless to say, this restructuration policy brought more actors and emplaced a number of new technological entities into the network, including mobile communication technologies such as GSM 2G, 3G, and CDMA (which will be explored later in this dissertation). At the same time, the new policy also displaced a number of actors from the network, namely the Telkom private consortia providing fixed-line infrastructure under the previous regime, following the termination of Telkom’s monopoly right.

By tracing the process of translations in the wake of the1997 economic crisis, it can be see a shift in rationality or logic of governing actions that eventually shape the

Indonesian telecom sector. It is also clear that this shift was characterized by stronger influence from international organizations such as the IMF and WTO. The characteristics of the governing actions in this period were a strong push toward competition and renunciation of any tendency toward monopoly and protectionism. The push toward competition was also

117

concomitant with juridical intervention to ensure the fairness of competition, which was manifested in the formation of law and the regulatory framework. In a sense, state intervention was the condition enabling the principle of “true and fair competition” to function.

This governing rationality, which combined these two characteristic of competition and permanent state intervention, was championed by Ordoliberalism in post war West Germany, also known as social market liberalism or neoliberalism governing

(Foucault, 2008). As an art of government (rationality in governing), neoliberalism endeavors to constitute society in the form of an enterprise, in sense that the fabric of the society and the formative power of society constitute multiplicities of enterprises characterized by logics of market competition (Foucault, 2008). These logics apply not only in governing the state, but also in the governance of a person in relation to himself/herself, in the governance of family, of personal property, of the environment (Gordon, 1991), and of various sectors of society, including telecommunication. However, neoliberalism contended that viewing society through the ethos of enterprises does not mean that society is oriented toward commodities, or that it positions the individual as the agent of exchange and consumerism as suggested by

Marxist theory. Rather, this rationality understands society as consisting of multiplicities of competitive mechanisms, with the individual as the agent of production who is able to conduct himself or herself based on rational and responsible behavior. To some extent, this rationality of government is also evident in the logic governing the telecommunication sector in Indonesia. This is not to suggest that there is an overarching neoliberal rationality applied

118

in the governing of the State. Rather, I argue that the restructuring of the Indonesian telecom sector indicates a partial manifestation of the logics of neoliberal govenmentality.

2.8. Conclusion

This chapter set out to trace the network of actors that contributed (and in some cases continue to contribute) to the development of Indonesia’s telecommunication infrastructure. The chapter is also intended as background information for the analysis of present-day infrastructure in subsequent chapters. In mapping the heterogeneous actors that played a role in infrastructure development, following Star (1999), I see the infrastructure as an entity with relational properties. This means that we must understand infrastructure as a way of organizing sets of relations among different entities and as a way of organizing particular behaviors. I began the tracing of actors with the construction of the Great Mail

Road in the Dutch colonial era because this infrastructure project was one of the first and most elaborate efforts to build telecommunication (transportation/communication) infrastructure in the country. This early road network also became the pattern for the construction of subsequent technological infrastructure such as railway, telegraph, telephone, and even the present-day Internet. It was followed by the tracing of infrastructure construction from early independence to the era of economic growth in the 1970s and 1980s.

Finally, the chapter examined the push toward liberalization of the telecommunication sector following the economic crisis at the dawn of twenty-first century.

The tracing and the mapping of the heterogeneous actors not only reveals the

119

composition of actors, which varied significantly across each time frame; it also illuminated the chains of translations in which several focal actors were able to require a particular way of thinking or action. The focal actors were able, thereby, to transform and displace other actors’ positions and assemble them into a network that responded to the particular problematizations defined by the focal actor. In other words, these focal actors initiated the activation of network of actors in order to find the solution to a specific problematization. For example, focal actors such as the Dutch colonial authority, the Sukarno administration, the

Suharto administration, and WTO, are among focal actors that defined the problems and activated networks of diverse actors in particular historical moments. The building of the

Great Mail Road, as case in point, clearly shows that the Dutch colonial authority found itself in a problematic situation when British navy repeatedly attacked its military communication through the sea transportation. Under the leadership of Daendels, then, the Dutch authority figured that the solution was to shift its military communication to an inland route. To enact this plan, the Dutch authority enrolled and translated several different actors. The enrollment of actors was conducted in several different ways—with military forces to mobilize forced labor, and with a political approach to enroll local lords and leaders. A number of nonhuman actors also contributed in this effort, such as horses, wards or posts, and stakes that were positioned along the way.

The same pattern of translations also took place at the dawn of the twenty-first century, although with different focal actors. This tracing of actors shows that the power to activate the actor-network and to mobilize different actors in the colonial era and early post-

120

colonial independence was largely in the hands of the colonial authority and the early national authority, in the form of centralized and institutionalized control over the telecommunication sector. This power and control began to disperse among many different actors in the early opening of the market to the involvement of private enterprise following market liberalization and deregulation. As a number of writers have shown, one of the factors that caused the State authority to reduce its strong control in the sector was the attempt to boost progress and growth in the telecommunication sector; later on, the shift was also forced by effort for economic recovery after economic crisis. Toward the beginning of the twenty-first century, a stronger influence in shaping the Indonesian telecommunication sector could also be found in a number of international actors, such as transnational organizations like the WTO, IMF, World Bank, etc., and numerous transnational telecommunication companies. While the former gained their influence from transnational consensus (such as WTO Agreement of Basic Telecommunication Service, and WTO

Reference Paper), the latter gained influence from the possession of economic capital to make the investments that were needed in the country.

As I have argued previously, the wide array of actors and their numerous movements indicate a multi-path fluidity of physical and incorporeal entities as well as the continuous placement, displacement, emplacement, and translations of actors, demonstrating that the network of infrastructure development is a precarious assembling and reassembling of many different entities that can change at any time according to the movement of actors.

Through the tracing of actors’ interactions and associations in all these different time frames,

121

it is evident that the dynamics of power shaping the Indonesian telecommunication sector and the development of infrastructure cannot be separated from the constellations of political power operating in the broader national and international contexts. This is a reflection of the intricate relations between technology, political power, and society.

From the tracing of actors and chains of translations in this chapter, we can also discern the interconnections between infrastructure development and shifts in governing logics across several different power regimes. The telecommunication infrastructure (and the telecommunication sector in general) was part of the security apparatus and the strategy for territorial domination in colonial times, and it served as an apparatus for maintaining sovereignty and control in post-colonial times. Telecommunication infrastructure also functioned as an economic apparatus: it supported the extraction of natural resources in colonial times, then it supported post-colonial economic development by helping to connect different parts of regions in the country and connecting the country with the international economic network. Toward the end of the twentieth century, international telecommunication policy became an economic apparatus as international actors such as the GATTS and the

WTO pushed for the liberalization of communication services worldwide.

The use of telecommunication infrastructures, policies, institutions, and corporations as a governing apparatus under the different regimes of power also entailed the production of truth claims by each particular regime. Examples of those truth claims include the ways in which a communication network should be built and utilized, the ways in which cooperation between public and private entities should be conducted, the determination of

122

who has the right to provide service for domestic connections or international connections, and the ways in which international cooperation should be allowed to occur in the domestic market. Within the power/ knowledge relations shaping these truth claims, a number of important actors along the way had the power to determine how the telecommunication should be understood (knowledge) and conducted. Again, powerful actors such as the Dutch colonial authority, the Suharto administration, the WTO/ GATTS, and others had the ability to produce knowledge/ truth claims, which in turn enabled them to determine how the population should conduct communication practices. In this sense, telecommunication became an apparatus that not only defined relations of power, but also produced knowledge or claims of truth.

The actor-network tracing presented in this chapter also reveals how the telecommunication infrastructure served as a governing apparatus for the production of a mode of subjectification. The development of infrastructure produced a population categorized into users and non-users—people with telecommunication access and people without it. The more the infrastructure developed, the more people without access were transformed into people with access. This production of subjects can also be seen in the case of the application of Universal Service Program, as part of the Agreement of Basic

Telecommunication (ABT) proposed by WTO. This program produced the categorization of the population into rural and urban users, in which the rural users became the target of the intervention in the provision of affordable telecommunication service. Hence, the history of telecommunication development presented in this chapter reveals how the

123

telecommunication infrastructure functioned (and still functions) as governing apparatus through the ways its defined power relations, produced claims of truth/ knowledge, and produced modes of subjectification.

Following this analysis of the historical development of Indonesian telecommunication, the next chapter examines Indonesian Internet infrastructure, particularly the current fiber-optic network for broadband connection. Again, I will trace the chains of translation and the ways in which infrastructure functions as a governing apparatus, constituting the politics of Indonesia’s Internet.

124

CHAPTER 3

The Agency of the Palapa Ring as a Hybrid: the Fusion of Discourse with the Affordances of Technical Objects

If I am not able to unite Nusantara, I will never taste palapa. Hence I will subdue Gurun Islamd, Seram Island, Tanjungpura, Haru Island, Pahang Island, Bali, Dompo, Sunda, Palembang and Tumasik (Singapore) (Gajah Mada, 1336 M, in Ibrahim, 2014, p.14)

The smoothness of communication between all places in Indonesia is not merely important to our economy and development but it will strengthen our nation’s unity. The determination for such unity has burned for hundreds of years. Prime Minister Gajah Mada once took an oath that he will not eat the fruit of palapa until he has brought about the unity and oneness of Majapahit kingdom, whose breadth and width were much like those of our archipelago, Nusantara. Now the unity and the oneness of Nusantara have been realized but we have to fortify it. … A nation with easier connection among people, a nation that better understands national problems and that is better educated will be able to speed up development and strengthen its unity. This will mean greater national resilience. Thus, we give the name “Palapa” to the Domestic Communication Satelite System because it symbolizes the realization of Gajah Mada ‘s oath to unite Nusantara (President Suharto, 1975 in Barker, 2005, p. 703)

With the Indonesian strategic position, located between two oceans and two continents, Indonesia can become a center of regional transit traffic and global ICT. The construction of a national optical fiber backbone (Palapa Ring) that connects all major islands and all districts / cities in Indonesia is one of the required steps to be able to achieve this goal as soon as possible. If the Palapa Ring is not immediately realized, Indonesia will only be an end terminal (of the global network). The choice is ours, whether we want to be an outstanding nation not only in the past but also in the future (Indonesia Broadband Plan, 2014, p.7).

3.1. Introduction

In the previous chapter I presented a historical account of the development of the

Indonesian telecommunication sector and infrastructure over several centuries and across several power regimes. I provided some contextual background to give a broader picture of

125

the dynamics behind actors’ power negotiations and the series of translations that have shaped the landscape of the Indonesian telecommunication sector in recent time. In this chapter and the next two chapters, I focus on the development of Internet infrastructure. First and foremost will be a close examination of the fiber-optic backbone network that is envisioned as the primary broadband infrastructure in the country, a network named the

Palapa Ring (as noted in the epigraph to this chapter). Hence, in this chapter, in a sense, the

Palapa Ring will be the main character or the leading actor. I will follow the chain of events that have led to the formation of the identity as well as the building of physical form of the

Palapa Ring infrastructure. I will also present several different understandings or ways of seeing the Palapa Ring; it is seen as a project of ongoing construction of broadband infrastructure, as a vision of establishing an important hub in the global Internet network, as an accumulation of aspirations to unite the country, and as an essential instrument in achieving economic development and population welfare. More importantly, in this chapter I will present the Palapa Ring as a ‘hybrid’ object, or quasi-object, or quasi-subject (Latour,

1993)—an entity that constitutes a blend of social elements and technical elements.

Latour (1993) introduced the notion of hybrid to call attention to the way in which modernity and the rise of science have produced a dualistic way of seeing the world: the distinction between nature and society, the separation between humans and things, and the divisions of reality consisting of the ‘hard’ dimension of the object (as the domain of natural scientists and engineers) and ‘soft’ dimension of human relations (as the domain of social scientist). This way of thinking tends to reduce one side and overemphasize the other,

126

as Latour described: “[m]odern humanists are reductionist because they seek to attribute action to a small number of powers, leaving the rest of the world with nothing but simple mute forces” (1993, p. 138). However, despite of the constant effort to separate and to

‘purify’ the duality of nature and society, the mixes of nature, politics, technology, and science are continuously to emerge. Phenomena such as climate change, deforestation, terrorism, and the Ebola virus, among others, show that hybrids persist and proliferate

(Latour, 1993). Instead of maintaining the separation of nature and culture, Latour argued, we should rethink the duality and move away from it, and to start to think of the world as a collective of heterogeneous elements:

Nature and Society are not two distinct poles, but one and the same production of

successive states of societies-natures, of collectives….Every concept, every

institution, every practice that interferes with the continuous deployment of

collectives and their experimentation with hybrids will be deemed dangerous,

harmful, and - we may as well say it - immoral. The work of mediation becomes

the very centre of the double power, natural and social. (1997, p. 139).

Seeing the world as a “successive states of societies-natures”, or as consist of “collectives” rather than compartmentalization of nature and society, following Latour argument, will help us to better understand and to better explain the world phenomena as well as the ways in which power works in each of the phenomenon.

127

Using this perspective, through the close examination of the conception and the development of Palapa Ring, I argue that the Palapa Ring is a hybrid. It is a blend of technical objects and numerous social and political discourses. It is not only a physical fiber- optic backbone infrastructure, but also an accumulation of discourses of the spirit of national unity, and the aspirations for national development and competitiveness. Hence, to fully understand the perceived and potential agency of this actor, it is important to examine the ways in which all of these different elements are integrated and mix together to become the

Palapa Ring. To this end, I will present a tracing genealogy of the term ‘palapa’ from the ancient empire of Majapahit as a part of the Indonesia’s history. I argue that this historical resonance is an important component in understanding the ways in which Palapa Ring is considered as a key element in the national development strategy in the twenty-first century

Indonesia. This tracing will reveal the array of actors who have contributed in building the identity and the physical form of the Palapa Ring through their actions and interactions to each other. At the same time, the tracing will also uncover the dynamics of power among the actors – power in the sense an action upon other actions (Foucault, 2008), or an action to modify other actions – to be able to understand the ways in which they influence, displace, compel, or translate one another.

In presenting the Palapa Ring as the main actor, this chapter took inspiration from a number of studies that focus their attention to non-animated objects and the ways those studies followed the development and the agency of those objects; such as de Laet and Mol’s study of a Zimbabwe Bush Pump (2000); Latour’s analysis of door hinges and car seatbelts

128

(1992), hotel keychains (1991), and Aramis, the Paris transportation infrastructure (1996);

Akrich’s study of a photoelectric lighting kit in Africa, a generator in Senegal, and the electricity network in the Ivory Coast (1992); Callon’s study of an electric vehicle in France

(1980). Thus, my approach in presenting technical objects as actors is not new, and it has been used in a large number of studies of technology that emphasis the agency of technical objects. In particular, this chapter draws inspiration from de Laet and Mol’s (2000) research on the Zimbabwe Bush Pump, which investigated the multiplicity and fluidity of bush pump identities. As de Laet and Mol showed, the water pump is not only mechanical object of hydraulic system; it is also a device that brings community together, a health promoter, and a nation-building apparatus. Some may consider the rhetorical move to position an object as the main actor as a form of anthropomorphic thinking. I do not deny such a claim, since the

Palapa Ring is indeed anthropomorphic in several senses: it is an object made by humans, it is an entity that takes over the action of humans, and it is a delegate that permanently occupies the position of a human in society.26

I draw the information for the investigation of the Palapa Ring from a number of sources. I consider the ways in which those sources describe the Palapa Satellite and the

Palapa Ring as technical entities that were expected to contribute in the attainment of larger national objectives. I also follow the history of palapa in a number of historical writings to fully understand the sense of identity that is discursively inscribed in the Palapa Ring. To a certain extent, I rearrange the information from those different sources and previous studies

26 In other words, I follow Latour’s (1992) argument in describing the anthropomorphism of door hinges.

129

to retell the story of the Palapa Ring development from its genesis to the most recent developments in the present time.

By examining the Palapa Ring through various writings, including policy papers such as the Indonesia Broadband Plan, I am able to analyze the aspect of governmentality of this infrastructure. As Miller and Rose (1990) have argued, “governmentality has a discursive character” (p.4), so a close examination of language is required to analyze the conceptualizations, explanations, and judgments that reside in a governmental field. In addition to considering the language of the Indonesian Broadband Plan, I examine the circumstances leading to the formulation of this policy paper, which reveals the ways in which the policy is located in a wider discursive field that inscribed a set of goals and expectations in the policy and in the Palapa Ring infrastructure itself. By examining the

Indonesian Broadband Plan as a grand plan of broadband development in Indonesia until

2019, I show the ways in which the Palapa Ring was positioned as an apparatus for governing the territory, security, and population, following the Palapa Satellite as its predecessor. Furthermore, a close examination of the circumstances that led to the formation of the Indonesian Broadband Plan reveals how this policy was also positioned as a part of the strategy to achieve synergy among different government institutions in the governing of broadband development.

This chapter, then, is organized into four sections. In the first section, I will describe the emergence of the Indonesian Broadband Plan—the strategic plan for broadband

Internet development in Indonesia, in which the Palapa Ring is positioned as a flagship

130

program. This plan also contains a vision or set of expectations of what the Palapa Ring should be able to contribute to the effort for national development and population welfare. In the second section, I will present a tracing of the social and political discourses associated with, and inscribed in, the word ‘palapa’ in different historical eras, in order to understand how those discourses become an integral part of the Palapa Ring as telecommunication infrastructure. In the third section, I will present a tracing of the Palapa Ring as an infrastructure project that acquired different identities in the hands of different actors. This section also considers how the Palapa Ring has mutated in the span of a decade to acquire multiple names and identities in recent years. In the final section, I will look at how the future of the Palapa Ring is described (or prescribed) in the Indonesia Boradband Plan and the final note of what has been done to implement that plan.

3.2. The Indonesian Broadband Plan: Achieving Social and Economic Advancements through Technology

In Jakarta at the end of 2014, the administration of President Yudhoyono (the fifth Indonesian presidential administration) issued a new regulation: the Presidential Decree

No. 96/ 2014 that contained a strategic plan for developing broadband technology for the next five years. The plan was named as the Indonesia Broadband Plan (hereafter IBP).

According to the explanation in the decree, the IBP would serve as the primary frame of reference for several different Ministries and government agencies, as well as in provincial and district administrations, as they formulated sectorial policies and action plans for broadband development in their respective sectors (Article 4). The IBP is a part of the more general national development plan, the Midterm National Development Plan (Rencana

131

Pembangunan Jangka Menengah, or RPJMN), which guides national development programs.

The IBP contains four important aspects in the grand design of broadband development: the regulatory framework, the infrastructure construction, the infrastructure financing, and the broadband utilization. Within those different aspects, my concern focuses on the infrastructure construction, particularly on the ways in which the IBP document positions the building of the Palapa Ring, as the flagship program in the plan.

The Palapa Ring project is one of four infrastructure projects in the plan. The other three consist of: 1) the plan to build shared duct or pipeline to accommodate a fiber- optic network that could be use simultaneously for other public infrastructure purposes (such as electricity, gas, telephone, etc.); 2) the plan to build a government network and consolidated data centers; and 3) the pilot project to establish wireless connectivity for terrestrial broadband in rural areas (IBP, 2014). It can be seen that the Palapa Ring project is the most important program in the plan because it has the broadest scope, reaching a large part of the national territory, and requiring the largest proportion of financing, while the other three programs are only described to be conducted at the regional level. The document mentions that the Palapa Ring is expected to connect 497 municipalities and districts

(kotamadya and kabupaten) across the country, and that it will be functioned as the main backbone of ICT infrastructure. Considering the way the IBP document describes the importance of the Palapa Ring project, it is safe to assume that this project is crucial in realizing and in bringing of the grand plan of Indonesian broadband development to fruition.

132

Looking closely to the content of the document, particularly the part of the rationales in the plan, the Palapa Ring as the main ICT infrastructure is envisioned to attain or to contribute in attaining big goals and ambitions in achieving economic progress, in bringing about welfare of population, and in increasing national competitiveness. The first part of the document, for example, asserts that ICT can play important role to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger (IBP, 2014). Connecting the role of broadband to several targets of Millennium Development Goals (MGDs), this document cites a number of previous studies that quantified the role of ICT to various aspects of developments, such as; the addition of broadband penetration by 10% stimulates the economic growth by 1.38%; the addition of broadband access by 10% a year is correlated with an increase of 1.5% in labor productivity in five years; and 1% increase in broadband penetration of households reduces unemployment growth of 8.6% (IBP, 2014). Not only eradicating poverty and hunger, this plan also associated the importance of the ICT to achieve universal education, to promote gender equality and empower women, to ensure environment sustainability, and to enable global partnership for development (IBP, 2014). The Palapa Ring, as the main ICT infrastructure in the country, is expected to be able to assist in reaching the similar goals.

Furthermore, the document also cites other so-called ‘global objectives’ from several different international forums as part of its rationales. For example, the IBP document cites the target set by the Broadband Commission (the organization set up by ITU and

UNESCO in 2010) that in 2015 all countries should have plans and strategies for broadband development. This Commission also targeted that all countries should have 40% households

133

with broadband access at the cost of 5% of monthly household income. The plans also cites the goals set by the ASEAN Master Plan on Connectivity, which mentions the building of

ASEAN broadband corridor should be achieved in 2014. Lastly, the plan refers to the goals from the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) to connect villages, schools, universities, health centers, and government agencies through ICT, and to make sure half of the world population should have access to ICT in 2015 (IBP, 2014). Those several different goals from a number of international forums, in which Indonesia is a member, are parts of the rationales and the justification in developing the broadband technology in the country. It can be discerned that by citing these goals in the plan, the writers of the IBP document also suggest that Indonesia as a nation partakes in the global endeavor to create population welfare through development of ICT, and the Palapa Ring project is one of the steps for that contribution.

Another part of the rationales is connecting the broadband developments with

Indonesia’s national development plan. This plan mentions the role of ICT in achieving one of the goals of the Master Plan of National Development Acceleration (MP3EI) to transform

Indonesia to be US$ 4.5 trillion economy in 2025 (as of 2015 Indonesia’s economy is US$

800 billion based on World Bank data). It mentions that these transformations “could not be achieved without the support of ICT,” (IBP, 2014, p. 16). The document also mentions that the ICT will be able to facilitate the effort to enhance national competitiveness and improve and strengthen Indonesia’s position. ICT will be able to assist to bring Indonesia further from its current position that has moved upwards in the last eight years from the 57th spot to 38th

134

spot in the World Economy Forum’s ranking of national competitiveness (IBP, 2014).

Finally, the plan also makes reference to the Indonesia National Constitution that guarantees the right of everyone to communicate, to obtain information, to develop personal and social environment, and to seek, to acquire, to possess, to store, to process, and to convey information using all available channels (Article 28 of Indonesia Constitution).

To follow the logic of the IBP, all these big goals and targets are planned to be achieved through the first step of building of ICT/ broadband infrastructure, particularly the

Palapa Ring. The Palapa Ring is seen to have the ability as a powerful channel in generating social transformation in transporting information to enhance economic opportunity and to increase workers productivity, to both urban and rural population in the country. The Palapa

Ring is also expected to be the main distribution platform in providing public and private services, to which the IBP document refers as e-government, e-health, e-education, e-logistic, and e-procurement (IBP, 2014). In other words, the Palapa Ring with its ability in distributing digitized information is expected to contribute in supporting better education, health, financial, and wide arrays of public services, and as a result it will lead to achieve welfare of the population and to strengthen national economy and national competitiveness in the globalized world.

The content of the IBP also suggests that the Palapa Ring is part of governing apparatus that would be used to manage various digitized information related to the population, and to conduct intervention in providing broadband service to the population.

The logic of the plan suggests that managing information through the utilization of the Palapa

135

Ring will help to attain the vision of stimulating economic growth, increasing labor productivity, reducing unemployment, eradicating poverty and hunger, and advancing the other goals of the Indonesian Broadband Plan. This technological network, then, is also positioned as a technique of power for management of the population. The plan to build the

Palapa Ring infrastructure itself is the starting point of a strategic of intervention in shaping the conduct of the population so that individuals can eventually manage themselves to be a productive citizens and active contributors to economic and national development.

However, the technical capability of the Palapa Ring as a channel or conduit for information transport is not the only the perceived agency attached to the Palapa Ring by the writers of the IBP document. Another part of the IBP document also associated different capacities with the Palapa Ring, as a passage in the IBP document that asserts,

With the Indonesian strategic (geographical) position – that located between two

oceans and two continents - Indonesia can become a center of regional transit

traffic and global ICT. The construction of the optical fiber backbone (Palapa

Ring) that connects all major islands and all districts / cities in Indonesia is one of

the required steps to be able to achieve this goal as soon as possible. If the Palapa

Ring is not immediately realized, Indonesia will only be an end terminal (of the

global network). The choice is ours, whether we want to be an outstanding nation

not only in the past but also in the future (IBP document, 2014, p.7, translated

from Indonesian)

136

This statement describes that the Palapa Ring is envisioned to have the ability to connect hundreds of islands and cities, the ability to make Indonesia as a center of regional information traffic, and the ability to position Indonesia to gain importance in international network. The last part of the statements implies that Indonesia was an outstanding nation in the past - although without reference to a specific time - and this assumed glorious past is used to invoke the possibility of glorious future. Such rhetoric of national pride that is linked to the national history, I argue, becomes a part that contributes to what is perceived as the agency of the Palapa Ring as formulated by the IBP writers.

The use of term ‘palapa’ to designate effort to achieve national development and to connect different regions in the country to bring unity is not new, and it had been utilized before the Palapa Ring. The sentiment to associate ‘palapa’ with the idea of nationalism and unity and the glorious past has been occupied Indonesian’ history, particularly in several specific points in time. Now the sentiment can be seen resurfaced in the vision of the Palapa

Ring and become the inseparable parts in the discussion this infrastructure. To understand more closely this perceived agency that is attributed to the Palapa Ring, it is important to examine what kinds of discourses have been embedded to ‘palapa’ in the past. In the next section, therefore, I will trace the genealogy of ‘palapa’, and the ways in which it had been used of a numerous different actors in the past. This historical tracing not only will help to understand numerous discourses that attached to the Palapa Ring, but also to identify the heterogeneous actors who contributed in attaching those discourses, and therefore, contributed in building the identity of the Palap Ring.

137

3.3. From the Palapa Oath to the Palapa Satellite to the Palapa Ring: The Genesis of a Hybrid

Earlier in this chapter I argued that the Palapa Ring could be seen as a technology of governance (or as an element of a governing apparatus) in its utilization as telecommunication infrastructure. Through the historical and cultural discourses embedded in the Palapa Ring, this infrastructure also functioned as an apparatus for knowledge production for directing the thought and the actions of the populations. This section will elucidate the ways in which a number of discourses were inscribed in the word “palapa,” making the

Palapa Ring into a meaning-making instrument, beyond its effects as a technological instrument of telecommunication. I will examine the history of “palapa” to show how discourses of national identity, security and unity were produced and inscribed in this key word. a. The History of Palapa Oath of Majapahit

The word “palapa” is familiar perhaps to most Indonesians, since it seems all school’s history books mention it as a part of national history. The word related to an event that took place around mid-fourteenth century in Majapahit Empire, an ancient Javanese empire (located in East Java province of Indonesia in present time) that is believed as one of the vastest and the strongest empires ever exists in Southeast Asia region. As the story has it, the Prime Minister and the war commander of the empire, named Gajah Mada, took a solemn oath in the presence of the empire’s court that he would not enjoy palapa27 until Nusantara

27 There is some debate over the meaning of “palapa.” Many believe it was a type of fruit, or a spice that came from a fruit, but there are other interpretations as well, as mention later in this section

138

was united (hence the name, Palapa Oath). Since Gajah Mada pledged his oath, the empire was able to expand its territory, and reached its pinnacle around 1350-1389 under the rule of the King of Hayam Wuruk, with Gajah Mada as the prime minister (Vlekke, 1959). The empire was believed to reign over the territory that include the territories of neighboring countries in present time, such as Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines, to which ‘the

Nusantara’ was referred. This sovereignty over the vast territory is the basis of the belief that

Majapahit was one of the vastest empires ever exists in the region. The Majapahit era is also often considered and cited as one of the most glorious times in the history of Indonesia. This is the dominant interpretation of the historical event that is continually produced and reproduced in modern Indonesia.

This interpretation, however, is not as straightforward as in the academic research of the ancient Java history. A number of history scholars have different stands in interpreting the main sources of the history of Majapahit, which come from at least several sources, including the inscriptions in Old Javanese text Desawarnana or Nagarakertagama written in

1365, the Middle Javanese text Pararaton, and some other supporting sources in Chinese records (Ricklef, 2001). There are some academic debates and different interpretations of

Majapahit history and the story of the Palapa Oath. Among them are debate between C.C.

Berg and F. Bosch (1965). C.C Berg (wrote a number of articles in 1950-1956) contended that the Old Javanese texts should not be considered as historical data, but as the story of religious myth that was not related to actual historical events (C.C Berg in Bosch, 1956;

Ricklef, 2001). In regards to the historical existence of Majapahit, Berg argued there was an

139

actual Majapahit, on one hand, and there was an empire of myth of the Great Majapahit, on the other hand. The Majapahit in Prapanca’s writing is not the actual empire but the myth of the Great Majapahit where Prapanca used a “simple method of exhaustively applying his knowledge of geography” in his writing (C.C Berg in Bosch, 1956). The actual Majapahit was most likely a smaller territory in Java. This is one of the interpretations of the Majapahit history, which proposes skepticism regarding historical validity and the truthfulness of the

Majapahit Empire exixtence.

Another ancient Java historian, Bosch (1956), on the other hand, vehemently refuted C.C. Berg’s arguments. As a counter argument to the question about trustworthiness of the Javanese texts, Bosch pointed the position of Prapanca (the main writer of the

Majapahit history), as the leader of religious community to sustain the authority of the text.

He argued that Prapanca was not only only a bhujangga, a man of letters, but he also occupied the elevated office of dharmmadhyaksa ring kasogatan, Superintendent of the

Buddhist clergy, who has the supreme control over all Buddhist foundations (Bosch, 1956).

Bosch uses this information as a basis to argue that the old Javanese inscriptions written by

Prapanca are not only the work of art of fictional and mythical story but also is part of the legacy of “cosmopolitan” religious community at the time (Bosch, 1956). Hence, those inscriptions can be trusted as sources of information about the existence of Majapahit in the past.

In addition to this argument, Bosch used the work of a different writer to

140

challenge C.C. Berg’s assertion about Majapahit as empire of myth. He pointed out a writing near contemporary to Prapanca’s called Suma Oriental, written by a Portuguese named Tome

Pires who stayed in Malacca between 1512 and 1515. Pires was believed to have visited Java from Mallacca (or known as Malaysia in present time) at the time of Majapahit Empire.

Bosch argued that this writing could be used to support the argument about the existence and the circumstances around Majapahit in early sixteenth century, if there is skepticism about ancient Java resources. Another history scholar, Rickelf (2001), supported Boch’s argument, and in his writing he asserted, “Berg’s general skepticism towards all Javanese sources seems exaggerated, and some certainty is possible about the history of Majapahit. It is reasonably clear who were its rulers down to the later fifteenth century, and what sort of state it was in general” (Rickelf, 2001. p. 52). Another example of academic debate on the related subject is the interpretation of palapa in the Gajah Mada’s Palapa Oath. While Ave (1989) and

Minattur (1966) believed that palapa refers to a common item of food, or perhaps a type of spices, Vlekke (1959) leaned to the interpretation that palapa refers to the Tantrist rites (the pleasures of sexual activity) that was introduced in not long before Gajah Mada time

(particularly in Kertanagara's time).

These academic debates show there is no singular interpretation on the subjects of Majapahit, Nusantara, and Palapa Oath that are agreed upon among the historians of ancient Java, although there is a more accepted version of interpretation among different scholars. What can be seen throughout the history of Indonesia, however, there is reproduction of single interpretation regarding the undisputed existence of Majapahit, the

141

vast territorial scope of ‘Nusantara’, and the meaning of ‘palapa’ as a type of food that had been used overtime to support purposes that related to the formation national identity, the idea of national unity, the idea of territorial sovereignty. This singular interpretation eventually became the dominant interpretation. This is not to say this dominant interpretation is completely and absolutely false, as there are some scholars that have supported this argument in their research or scholarly works. However, it cannot be denied that this singular interpretation becoming, most of the time, simply accepted as a general truth without critically examining, considering, and discussing the different point of views in the explanation or conversation about the history of Majapahit and Palapa Oath in the country.

The singularity of the history of Majapahit interpretation gained its force in the dawn of nationalist movement that put forward the spirit of unity among Indonesian in the

Dutch colonial time. Among a number of nationalist figures who brought up Majapahit history for this purpose was Suwardi Surjaningrat (or known as Ki Hadjar Dewantara), an early nationalist in a small group of educated Indonesians, who was chiefly concerned about education of native Indonesian in the colonial era (he was later declared as the Father of

Education in Indonesia). He revived the word “Nusantara” as found in Old Javanese manuscripts in the 1920s to create the sense of national identity among modern Indonesian

(Ave, 1989). Early Indonesian nationalists also viewed history of Majapahit provided firm borders in which definition of Indonesian territory as an independent state could be found

(Wood, 2011).

Another nationalist figures who was following the same move was Mohammad

142

Yamin who made the claim that Majapahit consist of all of the Dutch East Indies, the British possessions of Malaya and Borneo, and Portuguese Timor, as well as parts of the Philippines,

Cambodia, and even northern Australia (Wood, 2011). There was a debate among the

Indonesia’s founding fathers on whether this argument would be used in negotiating territory with Dutch colonist in the diplomacy endeavor for independence, although it was later decided against it because it considered would not help in negotiation effort (Wood, 2011).

Later Mohammad Yamin wrote a book entitled “Gajah Mada: Pahlawan Pemersatu

Nusantara” (or Gajah Mada: the Hero who Unite the Archipelago) that describes the heroism of Gajah Mada and they ways his action could inspired the spirit of nationalism in modern day (Yamin, 1960). Sukarno (who was later became the first President of Indonesia) also used Nusantara and palapa in several occasions of his well-known and spirited nationalist public oratory and political speeches (Ave, 1989). In one of his speeches, Sukarno (himself an East Javanese origin) emphasized that palapa is a type of spices and not other things.

Sukarno’s use of the history of Majapahit in his renown political speeches provided more ethos to the interpretation, which is also part of the force that led to the acceptance of singular interpretation of Palapa Oath at a later time.

The use of the history of Majapahit by the prominent figures in the early formation of the Indonesia as an independent State cemented a singular interpretation of palapa. This dominant interpretation was reproduced through public oratory, oral history, and various writings to support the spirit of nationalism and unity. The use of the palapa discourse was not an elaborate strategy to shape the conduct or thought of the population; it

143

was used in a more sporadic sense by some important historical figures. Nevertheless, this discourse still played an essential role in evoking a sense of national identity and unity in the mind of Indonesians. Also, this version of history was maintained and perpetuated by including it in school materials used to teach the history of the nation to younger generations. b. The Palapa Satelite and the genesis of the hybrid

This sporadic use of palapa discourse in early independence became more programmatic under the Suharto regime, in the second post-independence government of

Indonesia. The use of a singular interpretation of Majapahit history was further intensified by this administration. With his military background, Suharto used the term Wawasan Nusantara

(literally, “archipelago worldview” in Indonesian) as the ideology of Indonesian geopolitics, national security, and territorial defense as well as a conceptualization of national consciousness and unity. Suharto notoriously used the propaganda of national unity, harmony, and security through mass media, educational channels, and other political venues in his attempt to shut off dissent, religious tensions, and potential racial and regional conflicts, and to suppress the voice of opposition and protest from any citizen. The palapa discourse, then, became an important part of the Suharto administration’s effort to shape the thought and conduct of the population and the political worldview of the nation.

Another hallmark of Suharto presidency is the use of the discourse of development of national prosperity, population welfare, economic progress, and national defense. Suharto administration used a number of technological projects in fortifying his

144

political discourse of development, which included the agricultural mechanization and engineered crops (known as Green Revolution), the forest conversion to timber industry, the projects of gigantic dams and power plans construction to generate electricity for industrialization, and the satellite construction to reach the wide-span archipelago through telecommunication technology (Amir, 2012). Suharto named this first satellite communication system as Palapa Satellite. At this point, the use of ‘palapa’ and Majapahit history was no longer only in the form of rhetoric or intangible discourse, but it was then materialized in the form of concrete machine of telecommunication infrastructure of satellite communication system. The use of the name “palapa” for the satellite system by Suharto administration can also be seen as a way to actualize or concretize the palapa myth in the form of physical infrastructure.

The first Palapa Satellite was launched in 1976, not very long after the cooperation with Intelsat and ITT was signed, and at the same time when oil boom that boosted the economy in the country (see chapter 2). The discourse that surfaced at the launching of the satellite was that the Palapa Satellite is the first communication satellite system in the developing world, and it is considered as a technological breakthrough not only in Indonesia but also in Southeast Asia region (Barker, 2005). The satellite system consisted of a single geostationary satellite orbiting more than 22,300 miles above the earth and some

50 earth stations across the country. Barker (2005) who conducted an anthropological research on the Palapa Satellite project noted that the first defining moments of what this satellite supposed to mean to Indonesia was took place in August 16, 1975, in Suharto annual

145

speech to the House of Representatives. In the speech Suharto stated,

The smoothness of communication between all places in Indonesia is not merely

important to our economy and development but will strengthen our nation’s

unity. The determination for such unity has burned for hundreds of years. Prime

Minister Gajah Mada once took an oath that he would not eat the fruit of palapa

until he had brought about the unity and oneness of Majapahit kingdom, whose

breadth and width were much like those of our archipelago, Nusantara. Now the

unity and the oneness of Nusantara have been realized but we have to fortify it.

… A nation with easier connection among people, a nation that better understand

national problems and that is better educated will be able to speed up

development and strengthen its unity. This will mean greater national resilience.

Thus, we give the name “Palapa” to the Domestic Communication Satellite

System because it symbolizes the realization of Gajah Mada ‘s oath to unite

Nusantara” (Suharto, 1975, quoted from Barker, 2005, p. 703, italic to

emphasize).

Suharto invoked the sentiments of unity and nationalism through his reference to Majapahit,

Gajah Mada and Palapa Oath in the introduction of the satellite. The association of the satellite to the Palapa Oath as a pledge to unite the territory under a seamless communication network put the idea of unity in a more concrete form. The satellite considered would be able to connect many parts of the country that could not be connected otherwise, and to facilitate dissemination of information from central government in Jakarta outward, to the population

146

located in those many parts of the country, since much of the information was controlled by the regime at that time. All these were considered as part of the vision to unite the

‘Nusantara’ as in the vision of Gajah Mada in Majapahit Empire time.

Furthermore, Suharto administration fully exploited the launch of the satellite system to strengthen the association of Palapa Oath to Satellite Palapa by amplifying the propaganda of national unity and development through several other means. There was the building of Museum of Telecommunication in TMII Theme Park with large statue of Gajah

Mada in front of the museum (Barker, 2005). To perpetuate the idea even further, the association of Palapa Satellite and Palapa Oath was disseminated trough schoolbooks and taught to children in virtually all schools in Indonesia (Barker, 2005). These elaborate programs were parts of the effort to solidify Suharto political propaganda of unity, harmony, development, and progress. Hence, the dominant interpretation of Palapa Oath, Majapahit, and Nusantara was concretized into the material technology of satellite accompanied with a well-designed dissemination of information programs.

Aside of Suharto administration’s action the launch of the satellite, there was another network of actors that also contributed to the expansion of satellite infrastructure, and by doing so, indirectly participated in the undertaking of materialization of national unity discourse into the satellite infrastructure. As research from Barker (2005) discovered, there were networks of nationalist engineers – mostly in Bandung Institute of Technology (the largest and the oldest engineering school in the country) – that contributed to build the terrestrial infrastructures of earth stations in many parts of the country. Barker (2005) notes

147

that the groups of engineers led by an engineering professor named Iskandar Alisyahbana, and another group led by an engineering named Sumaryato Kayatmo took part in the project by establishing their own private companies, seeking technical knowledge, and seeking capital support through cooperation with foreign and domestic companies, to come up with the most effective technological designs to utilize satellite technology. Therefore - as Barker

(2005) notes – these groups of engineers became the powerful mediators to turn Suharto’s discursive construction of unity and development into reality. Barker further states, “their commitment to these dreams helps explain how nationalist discourses about the satellite came to be widely disseminated; it also explains how they became hard-wired into the satellite system as a whole rather than remaining merely a symbolic assertion and fantasy on the part of the national elite” (2005, p. 716).

What can bee seen in the tracing of actors thus far, I argue, is the genesis of a hybrid called the Palapa Satellite. It is neither technical nor social, but an amalgamation of both technical and social. The agency (or the perceived agency) of this telecommunication infrastructure to bring unity and progress and development not only came from of its technological capacity, but also came from the ideas and the belief that has been perpetuated overtime by different groups of actors. The word ‘palapa’ that was used as the name of the satellite communication system has been ‘occupied’ by several different meanings that had been used for different political purposes and agendas. The existence of this first hybrid in telecommunication infrastructure is the precursor of the second hybrid of the Palapa Ring.

From Suharto’s explanation of the meaning of the Palapa Satellite for Indonesia

148

(as cited in Barker, 2005), it can be discerned that the capacity of the satellite in relaying television and telephone signals across the vast archipelagic territory was also connected to the idea of educating the population to be smarter citizens. Smarter citizens, according to

Suharto, would be have a better understanding of national problem and greater ability to solve those problems, eventually leading to greater national resilience. Suharto’s explanation clearly shows that the Palapa Satellite was also seen as an instrument for shaping the conduct of the population to be better informed about the national issues, albeit from the Suharto administration’s point of view. The propaganda power of the Suharto administration (which was well-known for its use of mass media, particularly television, to promote its national development program) also strengthened the function of the Palapa Satellite as an apparatus for governing the conduct of the population. c. The Palapa Ring as the next generation of hybrid

As with its Palapa Satellite predecessor, I argue that the Palapa Ring also contained two different important elements. On one hand, it is a technological material entity of the fiber-optic network of broadband backbone that is envisioned to be the main channel for data transportation across the country, and as a part of the Internet global hub. The word

‘ring’ refers to a configuration of uninterrupted ring-shaped network that would be to connect all regions in the archipelago. This network consists of submarine and inland cables that stretch from western to eastern part of the country, which estimated more than 35,000 km in total length (as shown in Figure 4). The reason for this ring configuration is to ensure a continuous access of data traffic among nodes of network in anticipation of any case of

149

network failure.

As one of the latest advancement in telecommunication infrastructure, the fiber optic system is known to have capacity to transmit gigabit-plus range or billion bits per second of data. Not only to transport data in an enormous capacity, fiber-optic system is also expected to bring other advantages; such as the immunity to electromagnetic or radio interferences due to its use of light in conveying information, the affordance for highest degree of data security, the affordance for a great distance relaying information without the support of repeaters, and the most economically used of spaces due to its comparatively narrow size against other system (Mirabito & Morgenstern, 2004).

Figure 4. The Palapa Ring backbone network as portrayed in the Indonesia Broadband Plan document (2014)

150

On the other hand, the technical element of the Palapa Ring is also inscribed with discourses of national unity and progress that has inhabited the word ‘palapa’ throughout the history. The quote from IBP document that I have showed earlier, for example, is connecting the building of the Palapa Ring with the national glorious past. It is not difficult to discern that glorious past most likely refers to Majapahit time. The differences between Palapa

Satellite and the Palapa Ring is that the former was part of the political agenda and propaganda of a centralized and strong regime that has almost undisputed power, while the latter was conceived in the time of political reform with a more democratic atmosphere and decentralized power, with no strong hand of regime authority to push a well-designed political agenda. These different political situations draw a different complexity of network of actors (as I will show in the next section). The second difference between the two is while

Palapa Satellite primarily emphasizes the idea of national unity, development, and political stabilization to strengthen the legitimacy of the Suharto administration, the Palapa Ring emphasizes the discourses of national unity and development in order to achieve competitiveness in the globalized world. And the third and the most obvious different between the two is while the building of the first Palapa Satellite infrastructure had been completed, the construction of the Palapa Ring is still under way. Thus, the negotiation of actors in the network of Palapa Ring building is still ongoing to this date.

What this section help us to see is genesis of hybrid that blend the discourse of national identity and the spirit of unity, security, and development with the capacity of communication technology to connect the members of the population. The discourses that

151

contributed to the genesis of this hybrid is accumulated overtime and utilized to support a social and political agenda across different time in the history of Indonesia. This is the precursor to the birth of the Palapa Ring. It is also important to point out that the Palapa Ring as described in IBP document is not the first version of Palapa Ring. It has been gone through several different formulations and mutations in the hands of different actors. To further grasp the ways several different forms and identities have been assigned to the Palapa Ring, I will trace the origin of the concept in the late 1990s in the next section. I will show the ways in which the Palapa Ring as a hybrid was conceived, evolves, and eventually take shape in its latest version the IBP document.

3.4. From Nusantara-21 to Palapa Ring: the Mutation and Multiplication of Palapa Ring Identity

The idea of building telecommunication infrastructure for a national scale (i.e. covers most, if not all, parts of state territory) can be traced since 1996 with the conceptualization of Nusantara-21 program. Part of the inspiration of this program came from the idea of the USA’s High Performance Computing Act of 1991, or Gore Bill, or later more popularly known as Information Superhighway (as part of this name was also adopted in the Nusantara-21 plan). Nusantara-21 was intended to be the blueprint in building, regulating, utilizing Internet infrastructure to transform Indonesia to be an information technology society (YLTI, 1998). The development of the idea took place in a number of forums that was coordinated under the Ministry of Tourism, Post, and Telecommunication still in Suharto administration (YLTI, 1998). These forums, then, formalized in 1997 through

Presidential Decree No. 30/ 1997. World Bank also funded this effort under the program the

152

Indonesian Information Development Project (IIDP) (YLTI, 1998). A foundation named

Research and Development of Information and Telecommunication Foundation was one of the contributors of the plan, and made an important effort in documenting the concept of the project (which I used in this research). The political situation around the time was still under the strong control of Suharto administration; hence, this administration still influenced the plan in relation to the discourse of national security, unity, and Wawasan Nusantara as the geopolitical ideology. From the use of the name of ‘Nusantara’ in this blue print of telecommunication development, it can be discerned that it was also alluding to the history of

Majapahit, just as the previous satellite communication infrastructure.

The Nusantara-21 plan put forward a reasonably comprehensive program in developing telecommunication sector (comparable to the IBP in present time). The plan consisted of the vision of telecom sectors, the strategy for development, the regulatory framework, the human development framework, the infrastructure development framework, the technological application framework, and the information network development framework (YLTI, 1998). In terms of infrastructure building, Nusantara-21 program conceptualized three parts of infrastructure projects; the first part was the Archipelagic

Superhighway; the second part was the Multimedia Cities; and the third part was the

Nusantara Multimedia Community Access Center (YLTI, 1998).

The Archipelagic Superhighway project would consist of the building of backbone network that would connect all provinces in Indonesia (still 27 provinces at the time) as the main information infrastructure. The Multimedia Cities project would consist of

153

the building of network configuration of Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) - or synchronous data transmission on optical media - to serve as a central of economic activities across the country. The Nusantara Multimedia Community Access Center project was intended to be the provision of community access centers that would provides services such as broadband payphone, broadband business centers, networked e-library, and multimedia community kiosks, as the forefront service points across the country (YLTI, 1998).

This plan, however, did not have chance to come to fruition when the economic crisis hit Indonesia in 1997, and followed by political crisis in 1998. The economic situation was not in the position to afford such mega-project that required enormous amount of funding. Furthermore, with the liberalization of telecom sector that was following the issuance of the Telecommunication Law 1999 as part of IMF prescription for economic recovery (see chapter 2), the control of the state authority over telecom sector was diminished significantly. The Nusantara-21 plan, which by far was still a top-down initiative that led by Suharto administration, was fairly abandoned and hardly surfaced in public discussion.

It was not until 2005 in the event of the First Indonesia Infrastructure Summit in

Jakarta that the concept of building national scale telecommunication infrastructure resurfaced with the name of Palapa Ring (MCIT document, 2011). It is not very clear the person who came up with the name of ‘palapa’; nonetheless the name was publicly accepted as the name of the infrastructure that would connect most (if not all) parts of the territory of

Indonesia. There was little doubt that the story of glorious past of Majapahit as part of

154

Indonesia’s history was associated to the name when the first time it was proposed. Thus, the infrastructural development part in the Nusantara-21 program, which previously named as the Archipelagic Superhighway, was resurfaced with a different name. The objective was fairly similar, as the document of Nusantara-21 asserts that the Archipelagic Superhighway would facilitate, “the provision of communication infrastructure and information systems that cover the entire archipelago at the beginning of the 21st century” (YLTI, 1998, p. 43). This

Archipelagic Superhighway description is not very different from the description of the

Palapa Ring in the Indonesia Broadband Plan (IBP). The moment when the idea of

Archipelagic Superhighway mutated to become Palapa Ring in the hand of different actors with a different political context can be seen as the first moment of the Palapa Ring mutation.

After reading a number of different resources and documents, I was able to make a deduction that the Palapa Ring project was one among many infrastructure-building proposals that was presented in the First Indonesia Infrastructure Summit in 2005. After more than seven years of political transitions (and three presidential administrations took office in that sort period of time), the country arrived to somewhat stable political situation with the signs of economic recovery. Hence, the current presidential administration (Yudhoyono administration at that time) was able to move forward with some planning of infrastructure building in supporting the country development. The First Indonesia Infrastructure Summit in

Jakarta in 2005 was one among several attempts of Yudhoyono administration to encourage private investments in public infrastructure project (Aswicahyono & Friawan, 2008). This summit was able to attract participations from large number of private investors, which

155

produced 91 proposals of infrastructure projects with value more than US$ 22 billion

(Aswicahyono & Friawan, 2008). These big number, however, was proved to be rather premature investment enthusiasm, since by the end 2006 only six winning bidders was announced, and only one project began the construction (Aswicahyono & Friawan 2008).

Based on a document from the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology

(MCIT), after the Palapa Ring project was announced in the 2005 summit, the project was gone through feasibility study from March to October 2006. However, I was not able to get information of what is the result of this feasibility study, and it is most likely not accessible to the public.

The project then reintroduced in the Second Indonesia Infrastructure Conference and Exhibition in November 2006, the similar event with the previous year with slightly different name. More prepared than the previous year, the Yudhoyono administration had put together a number of new investment regulations prior to the event, which replaced regulation dating back to 1967 (Aswicahyono & Friawan, 2008). The administration introduced the “Infrastructure Policy Package” that consist of 50 policy packages, with a number additions to the policy later at the end of the year (Aswicahyono & Friawan, 2008).

The Palapa Ring project moved forward this time around. The project once again gone through a feasibility study, this time conducted by World Bank Technical Assistants (MCIT document, 2014).

156

By the November 2007 the Palapa Ring Consortium was formed that consist of six companies; five of them were private companies and one was a state-owned company.28

In this early phase, the member of the consortium reach a consensus that all members agreed upon the value of the project was as much as US$ 225 million (Rohman, 2014). The main objective of the project in this early phase was to build and to deploy almost 22,000 miles of submarine cable system and 13,500 miles of inland cable system. The primary agenda was to connect the eastern parts of Indonesia through these proposed cable systems (Rohman, 2014).

The formation of this consortium was essential in the Palapa Ring planning with the project financing that need a relatively big funding. If the building of telecommunication infrastructure in the past was supported largely by the State and the state-owned company, the liberalization of telecommunication sector positioned the state government no longer had the role as the player in the industry, and only as the regulator of the industry. The ways the

Palapa Ring was introduced and reintroduced in the exhibitions to attract private investments was one of sign of the direct consequence this liberalization.

What seemingly a smooth start of the project, however, was not last long when one by one the members of the consortium withdrew their commitment from the project. In the year 2008 alone, there were two members pulled out from the project. This situation brought the project value down to US$ 180 million (from US$ 225 million). The financial crisis that took place around 2008 caused currency depreciation, which brought the value of

28 The members of the consortium are PT. Telkom, Bakrie Telekom, Excelcomindo Pratama, Infokom Elektrindo, Indosat, and Powertek Utama Internusa (Rohman, 2014).

157

the project further down to US$ 150 million (Rohman, 2014). The global financial crisis apparently was further affecting another member of the consortium, which made the third company, Excelcomindo Pratama, backed out from the project in mid 2009 and brought the project further down to US$ 120 million. With only three members of consortium left in the project, by the end 2009 it was decided that the first phase of cable system construction would be started. However, among these three remaining members, only PT Telkom supported this first phase of the project financially by using their company internal fund

(Rohman, 2014). The project consisted of the construction of cable system as long as approximately 650 miles in Southeast part of the country that connect Mataram and Kupang, and also names Mataram Kupang Cable System (MKCS). This project was carried out with the cooperation with Huawei Marine as the winner of the bidding process, with the value of

US$ 50 million.

There are some possible causes that made the consortium members withdraw their commitment. As Rohman (2014) notes the main reason of this resignation was that consortium members were not able to fulfill their financial contributions that was agreed upon early on in the project. As in the case of Excelcomindo Pratama, the global financial crisis affected the performance of the company that led to the inability to fulfill financial commitment (Rohman, 2014). A source from PT Telkom at the Directorate of Network IT and Solution, Edi Sutiono (a pseudonym), acknowledged this reasons through the research interview but also pointed out another reason of this withdrawal. Recalling his involvement as part of the team who worked in the project, Sutiono said the reason that surfaced at the

158

time was the consortium members were reluctant to go on with the project after considering the future business possibility to gain profit from the project (Sutiono, personal communication, April 8, 2015). A large part of the locations where the cable system was planned to be built were not fully developed economically to be considered as a profitable telecommunication market. Once the cable system was completed, members would have to start to invest reasonable amount of funding to begin the operation in order to monetize the infrastructure through the selling of services. Since the demand for telecom services was very low, the potential for return of investment was very low too, let alone to gain more profit

(Sutiono, personal communication, April 8, 2015). This situation was slightly different for

PT Telkom since the company was the incumbent and had already owned a broader company management network as well as infrastructure network for fixed telephone line as compare to other companies, thanks to the legacy of market monopoly in the past (see chapter 2). The low market demand and the domination of PT Telkom made other companies not very optimistic about the opportunity for profit, and decide to pull out from the project (Sutiono, personal communication, April 8, 2015).

After the dissolvent of the consortium, the Palapa Ring project moved to several different directions. PT Telkom was the only telecommunication company who still committed to the project. It was the only company that was potentially able to convert the project to be a profitable business prospect rather immediately compare to other telecom companies, and practically the only one who had sufficient capital to finance the project.

Hence, PT Telkom took the project to build fiber optic network as part of company mission,

159

and rename it as “Nusantara Superhighway” or “True Broadband plan” project (as can be seen in figure 4). It was a similar project with the Palapa Ring, but PT Telkom went further from just building fiber-optic backbone infrastructure and extended the project to include the building of regional/metro fiber optic, FTTH (fiber to the home), and several thousands of base station deployments, with project value up to US$ 1.6 or IDR 22 trillion (World Bank

Report, 2012).

PT Telkom was targeting by the end of 2014 there would be 421 cities covered in the program, and enjoyed the broadband access (Telkom document, 2011). After completing

Maratam-Kupang Cable System project in 2011, PT Telkom continued the fiber-optic network building in eastern part of Indonesia, which named as Sulawesi-Maluku-Papua

Cable System (SMPCS). This cable system consist of more than 3300 miles (5444 km) of submarine cable and more than 400 miles (655 km) of inland cable. By mid 2013, PT

Telkom had conducted a bidding process to start the construction of two parts of SMPCS project, which yielded two bidding winners; Alcatel Submarine Network (ASN) and NEC

Corporation. These companies would assist the building of more than 2150 miles (3500 km) of submarines and inland cable with project value of US$ 123 billion. This project was expected to be finished by 2015 (and the project was still ongoing by the time I concluded the fieldwork for this research).

160

Figure 5. The PT Telkom’s Nusantara Highway project that was used as the model for the Palapa Ring project in Indonesia Broadband Plan. In the image, straight lines represent the existing network, dotted lines represent the ongoing network construction, and dashed lines represent the planned network as of 2011 (Telkom document, 2011).

Meanwhile, the MCIT considered that the Palapa Ring project was still exist and still continue to run, only facing temporary set back caused by disagreement of funding.

After the dissolvent of the consortium, MCIT had gone through a series of analysis of different schemes of financing the Palapa Ring project, and there were rounds of discussions took place between MCIT and Ministry of Finance regarding the issue. In 2011, there was recalculation of the project in the feasibility study update with the assistance from World

161

Bank consultant. This study recalculating the remaining financial need after the adjustment from what PT Telkom had planned and had executed in their Nusantara Superhighway project. This feasibility study suggested there were three parts of project that was still needed to be done in order to complete Papala Ring project, which consist of: main Palapa Ring East to Maluku-Papua, the extension to Kabupaten in Western Indonesia, and the extension to

Kabupaten in Eastern Indonesia, with total value US$ 569 million (World Bank Report,

2012).

In October 2011 MCIT came up with a new rule, the Ministerial Regulation No.

11/ 2011, to regulate the use of Universal Service Obligation funding for the ICT fund (more about this fund in Chapter 5).29 There was a series of evaluations and discussion that took place again regarding the technicality and mechanism of funding use as well as the prospective business models that could be applied to the project. By August 2012, MCIT issued the revision of the ICT fund regulation through the Ministerial Decree No. 23/ 2012, which included the additional details regarding the bidding mechanism, the company eligibility to participate in bidding, and the possible length of the contract of the project.

Subsequent to this rule issuance, MCIT had not taken any significant action in regards to continuation of the Palapa Ring project. Then, the process of drafting Indonesia Broadband

Plan (IBP) was started later in 2012. The Palapa Ring project became part of the IBP with division of work between MCIT and PT Telkom.

29 Universal Service Obligation funding (USO) is non‐tax revenue sourced from the contribution of the telecommunication companies with the purpose to provide telecommunication service in remote or non‐ economically viable areas. More about USO will be discussed in chapter 5.

162

What can be seen through the tracing in this section is the mutation and multiplication of the infrastructure-building plan that is associated to the Palapa Ring project.

In 2005 there was a mutation of the idea of the project from Archipelagic Superhighway to the Palapa Ring. On the contrary to Archipelagic Superhighway that was never materialized and to take form as physical infrastructure, some parts of the Palapa Ring was eventually materialized in the form of Mataram-Kupang Cable System in eastern part of Indonesia. By

2012 there were two versions of the plan that referred to the more of less the same project of fiber-optic backbone network construction; one was Nusantara Superhighway from PT

Telkom, and the other plan retained the name of the Palapa Ring from MCIT.

These two plans existed with two different motives. On one hand, there was

National Superhighway that belong to PT Telkom as a business entity (also partly owned by the state) that moved forward within the logic of business, or the calculation of supply and demand with goal to gain profit. On the other hand, there was Palapa Ring that was carried out by MCIT as part of government program. As part of the Universal Service Program, the logic of this program was providing equal access to all part of the region and to increase connectivity to support development. Hence, there was a multiplication of Palapa Ring identity, which overlapped with one another. The version that later found in the IBP, as described in the early section in this chapter, is the Palapa Ring from MCIT version, or the state government-led infrastructure plan.

Although the Palapa Ring has gone through long journey and it has undergone mutation and multiplication of identity, it still has not finished yet. The future of the Palapa

163

Ring at the moment is in the hand of MCIT. Whether the Palapa Ring will move forward faster, or move slower, or even will eventually stop without ever accomplished still remain to be seen. However, it seems that the creators of IBP - where the Palapa Ring is the flagship program - have taken a certain measure to make sure that the broadband policy in general, and the Palapa Ring in particular, will be able move forward. The next section will trace the network of IBP creators and how they come together in formulating the policy broadband, and to ensure that the infrastructure building can be realized. The next section will also present the latest scheme of building the Palapa Ring from MCIT and how this government agency plan to execute and finalized Papala Ring project.

3.5. The Palapa Ring in the Indonesia Broadband Plan: the Future of the Palapa Ring

As mentioned before, Indonesia Broadband Plan was issued at the time of

President Yudoyhono administration in 2014. Although this administration was in office for two terms from 2004 to 2014, it was not until its last year that the broadband policy was issued. Thus, this administration had not have chance to implement the policy, and it is more like a legacy to the next presidential administration, President Widodo administration. The

IBP documents mentions there are at least five key public and private agencies collaborating in creating this plan, each with a particular responsibility; the first was the Ministry of

National Development Planning (Badan Perencana Pembangunan Nasional, hereafter

MNDP) that was responsible for leading the drafting and the financial aspect of the plan; the second was Coordinating Ministry of Economic Affairs (hereafter CMEA) that was responsible for regulatory aspect; the third was Ministry of Communication and Information

164

Technology (MCIT) that was responsible for infrastructure aspect; the fourth and the fifth were the Indonesian Telematic Society (hereafter MASTEL) and Indonesian Chambers of

Commerce (hereafter KADIN), both are non-governmental agencies as the representative of the industry, were responsible for the utilization aspect. These different organizations were brought together with an intention to make this broadband policy as a product of multistakeholder actors to ensure the active participation of each actor in the future, as revealed from research interview with several spokespersons of the organizations.

As Ms. Mira Tayyiba, the Deputy Director for Post, Telecommunication and

Information Technology at the MNDP (also the chief coordinator of the IBP drafting) mentioned, the IBP was not the first attempt to produce broadband policy in the country. The discourse of producing broadband policy has been around since 2009, and there were at least two previous attempts had been made to develop policy with no success (Tayyiba, personal communication, March 16, 2015). As Tayyiba expressed, “… the talk about broadband, broadband, broadband had been started few years earlier, at least since 2009. So the boom of broadband discussion in Indonesia, at least in the circle of central government agencies (in

Jakarta), was started since 2009. Different seminars and forums about broadband policy had been circulated among different Ministries. One day it was forum at MCIT, another day it was at CMEA, and another day it was at MASTEL, it seems that everybody had took their turn to run a discussion forum to talk about broadband policy” (personal communication,

March 16, 2015).

165

The inability to form broadband policy prior to the IBP seems to be related to the lack of coordination among different agencies that were involved in the broadband development. As Tayyiba further elaborated, if one agency drafted a policy without the involvement of other agencies in the process, there is a risk the particular policy draft would have been considered lack of authority and could not effectively enroll other agencies to commit to participate in the implementation the drafted policy. This was the case with the previous attempt before the IBP, when the CMEA supported by the MASTEL and KADIN drafted a policy named Broadband Merah Putih (translated Red-White Broadband, referring to the colors of Indonesian flag). When the CMEA proposed the draft to be adopted by the

MCIT, the MCIT was reluctant to do so since this Ministry considered they were not involved in the process of drafting the proposed policy (Tayyiba, personal communication,

March 16, 2015).

This lack of coordination hindered the formations of comprehensive plan that suppose to be the main guidance of in developing broadband infrastructure and industry. As

Tayyiba mentions, it was perceived that the broadband industry has been moving on its own term without a proper direction to integrate broadband utilization to support national development plan, to which she described, “… we can see that the industry is ready. It is the government who is not ready. In a sense, there is no guidance and no direction of where we are going, what we are going to do, and what is the next step. So there must be a plan (for broadband development) (personal communication, March 16, 2015).

166

Learning from the previous experience, the MNDP assembled the most relevant agencies with their specific area of authorities to be involved in the process of policy drafting. The initiative from the MDP to lead the policy formulation was not without reason, as Tayyiba explained, “… after previous attempts from different ministries, it finally came here to our Ministry because we are considered as the most neutral (ministry). That is because we are dealing with coordination among different ministries (in various development projects). So we are hoping this plan will not only plan to build the infrastructure, but also to plan the coordination for the further utilization of the infrastructure (personal communication, March 16, 2015). The first step from MDP, according to Tayyiba, was to go to MCIT to discuss further step, since this Ministry has the main authority in broadband development. Apparently, MCIT also had their own broadband policy concept but mostly in the infrastructure aspect. Hence, the MDP asked the MCIT for joining forces in drafting the policy (Tayyiba, personal communication, March 16, 2015). The next step was to invite other most relevant stakeholders, which led to the formation of IBP creators (which consist of five agencies as mentioned earlier).

The next consideration to ensure the effectiveness of the policy other than to use multi-stakeholder approach was to have a strong legal standing that can be enforced to different ministries. Previous experience showed if a policy was issued under the authority of a particular ministry, and came out as a Ministerial Decree, it could have relatively weak enforcement to other ministries (Tayyiba, personal communication, March 16, 2015). Then, according to Tayyiba, it was decided that the IBP would be issued as a Presidential Decree.

167

This legal standing was deemed would strengthen the authority of the IBP to enroll and mobilize other parties in broadband development, both public and private agencies, whether they would involve in regulating, financing, infrastructure building, or utilizing the technology. The multi-stakeholder approach and the higher-level legal standing, however, was not without consequence. The endeavor for inclusivity by involving a number agency slowed the formulation of the policy (Tayyiba, personal communication, March 16, 2015).

The process took nearly two and half years, starting from July 2012. In September 2014 the

Presidential Decree was finally signed and officially launched to the public by the end of

2014.

Hence, from the standpoint of regulatory foundation, there were two approaches used to ensure that the Indonesian Broadband Plan, and the Palapa Ring Project in it, to be able to move forward this time around. The first approach is by ensuring the involvement of several different actors from different governmental and regulatory agencies as well as the involvement of a number of industrial players in multi-stakeholders collaboration. With this multi-stakeholders approach, there will be no excuse come from a relevant governmental agencies to say that they are not involve in the process of policy formation. The involvement of these different actors and their specific tasks was formalized in the IBP document. The second approach is by deciding to use the Presidential Decree as the regulatory basis for the

IBP. This basis was deemed to have more authority and power to enforce the implementation across different ministries and other regulatory and governmental agencies. I see that this regulatory framework was one of the ways to ensure the future of the Palapa Ring.

168

In relation to the Palapa Ring physical construction, the IBP document indicates there will be a division of work in building the backbone infrastructure between PT Telkom and the MCIT in order to expedite the connectivity of all regions by 2019. Out of 497 municipalities and districts, 51 of them are considered economically non-feasible since there are relatively low demands of telecommunication services. The MCIT will responsible to build infrastructure in these 51 areas. As for the rest 446 districts and municipalities, the document specifically mentions PT Telkom as the provider of the infrastructure in those areas. Regarding to the funding of the project, the IBP document mentions that the Palapa

Ring project in 51 districts that is part of the MCIT will be financed through the appropriation of the USO fund, while the project in 446 districts and municipalities that is part of the PT Telkom will be financed through corporate funding.

When asked about this division of work between MCIT and PT Telkom, Tayyiba explained that it was planned in the interest of reaching immediate of infrastructure provision to all districts and municipalities, considering the timeline to achieve the target by 2019.

According to Tayyibba, the central government (under President Yudhoyono administration, and then under President Widodo administration) always believes the telecom market in

Indonesia is still growing. The government is also confident that the less developed regions that are considered economically non-feasible at present will eventually be covered by infrastructure without government intervention. It will just take a longer time and it will not be in line with the timeline in the national development plan. As Tayyiba recounted, this is why the government has to step in. At the same time, however, the central government does

169

not want to take over the role of the telecommunication companies in conducting their business of providing infrastructure and services. Weighing between these two considerations, it was decided that the government would only contribute to build infrastructure in 51 regions, which what is generally considered as profit loss areas among telecom companies. Tayyiba also stated that determination of these areas would be done through close coordination with telecommunication companies (personal communication,

March 16, 2015).

Commenting on this division of work, Edi Sutiono (the source from PT Telkom) said there is no actual and clear demarcation between the regions that will be part of PT

Telkom responsibility and MCIT (State government) responsibility. Until the issuance of the

IBP, there was still no detail about where the exact 51 municipalities or districts where the

MCIT would initiate infrastructure building. Sutiono recounted that prior to the emergence of division of work in specific number of 446 vs. 51 districts and municipalities in IBP, MCIT representatives came to PT Telkom to have discussion regarding the locations of where PT

Telkom would build its cable system as part of the company plan. PT Telkom representative, then, pointed a number certain places that were parts of the areas for infrastructure building, and pointed out several places that were still deemed as non-economically feasible locations.

However, this did not mean that PT Telkom would totally not consider building infrastructure in those particular locations some time in the future; it was just a temporary consideration at the time when the discussion with MCIT representative took place. Upon further discussion a specific number of 51 districts and municipalities came up to be a

170

number of location where MCIT would organize the infrastructure-building project. Sutiono said that there was an impression that MCIT was impatient and want to come up with a specific number of what would be part of the MCIT responsibility (Sutiono, personal communication, April 8, 2015).

One thing for sure, Sutiono said, that PT Telkom is still free to build infrastructure in any part of the country. He said, “… until now, there is no rule that prohibit

Telkom to build infrastructure in any part of Indonesian soil. Every part is still open to

Telkom; we will build where we are able to build. This is part of our commitment that differentiate us from the other operators, since they would build only in the areas that have potential (for profit)” (Sutiono, 2015, personal communication, April 8, 2015). He also said that this division of responsibilities perhaps is one way for the government to be able to appropriate the USO funding for infrastructure provision (although he emphasized that he could not confirm on this opinion).

From PT Telkom point of view, the Palapa Ring project has always been part of the company vision to provide broadband transport and access to all regions across the country, although they have different name for it (as explained in the previous section).

Sutiono mentioned, since the plan for the Palapa Ring project that is used by MCIT (for the

51 districts) was sourced from data and estimations from PT Telkom, they always see that the

Palapa Ring in the IBP is a complementary with PT Telkom plan. PT Telkom will be stick to their plan to build infrastructure in what are still considered as less developed areas if they see fit. PT Telkom sees their entire infrastructure project as part of their commitment to

171

government and to national development.

Furthermore, Sutiono mentioned, in his point of view, the government intervention and involvement in infrastructure building actually is not urgent at the moment because telecommunication companies are still able to provide infrastructure provision to answer the market demand. Rather than to involve in infrastructure building, Sutiono mentioned the more urgent role of the government is to improve the regulatory aspects of telecom sector. He mentioned the complexity of bureaucracy web that telecom operators have to deal every time they want to execute an infrastructure project is the major impediment in infrastructure development. Case in point is any project that that deals with local government in district level. Sutiono said this kind of project has always been complicated, time consuming, and expensive since there is no streamlined and standardized bureaucracy due to the autonomy of each district in regulating their areas. Not to mention the cases where telecommunication companies have to deal with ‘informal’ or even ‘illegal’ disbursement imposed by certain local government official. Telecom companies often face these kinds of cases without any intervention from central government in Jakarta. In his point of view, this regulatory impediment should be the government priority intervention and not the infrastructure building (Sutiono, personal communication, April 8, 2015).

Despite this different point of view in seeing government involvement in infrastructure building, the MCIT kept moving forward with their part of the Palapa Ring project. Marvel Situmorang, the Head of Universal Service Obligation at the MCIT said that the Ministry was still the process of assessment regarding the best business model for public-

172

private partnership scheme. When the interview was conducted (in April 2015), MCIT with

Infrastructure Guarantee Company (ICG, Perusahaan Penjamin Infrastruktur), a government agency that have role as MCIT partner in the Palapa Ring project, were still exploring several alternatives that can be used in the project. Once the business models have been decided,

MCIT will hold bidding process, and at the end of 2015 MCIT expects that the winner of the bidder will be decided so that the project will be able to be executed by 2016 (the process was still ongoing until the fieldwork for this research was completed).

Situmorang acknowledged that with this long state government budget cycles, there is a possibility that market mechanism would be able surpasses MCIT schedule, and the

51 regions that was part of MCIT commitment would eventually be covered by infrastructure without government funding. When he was asked to comment of this matter, Situmorang think there would be no problem if that were the case. Even as the interview took place, he said, PT Telkom have been moving forward with their infrastructure building plan, and there are less than 51 district that need government funding. However, Situmorang believes that if the MCIT would start sounding a project bidding for the Palapa Ring, telecom operators would understand and they would not initiate in project in the region in question

(Situmorang, personal communication, April 28, 2015).

As we can see from the PT Telkom’s standpoint and MCIT’s standpoint in this section, there is still a multiple understanding regarding how the construction of the Palapa

Ring will be executed. While PT Telkom will still continue the construction plan according to it company mission, MCIT will also conducted its own process of finalizing financing

173

scheme, inviting the bidders, until the process of construction. There is still no way to know how these two processes will synchronize to each other. Hence, not only in the past, the current situation surrounding the Palapa Ring is still marked by multiple interpretations.

Similar with he long history of palapa, the Palapa Ring projects has been laced with different interests, discourses, and negotiations of many different actors in the network of infrastructure development. These actors believe that the technical agency of the Palapa

Ring is something that they can use to support their agendas, but at the same time all these actors’ agendas and motives were shaped and designed surround the technical capacity of the technicality of fiber-optic network. What will be the end product of the Palapa Ring project is still unknown, and how it will be able to bring Indonesia to social transformation and to bring welfare to its population is still remain to be seen.

3.6. Conclusion

This chapter set out to examine the social and political dynamics surrounding the

Palapa Ring project, the building of a fiber-optic cable network in Indonesia. My exploration of the network of actors and the chain of translations surrounding this infrastructure-building project led me to the discovery of a number of discourses and visions that were inscribed in the infrastructure. I began the investigation by examining the description of the Palapa Ring in the Indonesian Broadband Plan, the main policy document for broadband development in the country. This policy contained the rationales, the strategic plans, and the implementation of broadband development at the national scale. It connects the broadband development

174

programs with a number of goals related to economic development, population welfare, and national competitiveness. Through a close reading of the rationales of the broadband development in this policy paper, it can be clearly discerned that the Palapa Ring is positioned as part of a larger strategy of national development.

From the description of the Palapa Ring in the IBP, I argued that this telecommunication infrastructure functioned as governing apparatus in creating social order and shaping the conduct of the population to be a more productive population. To follow the definition of apparatus from Agamben (2009) as “anything that has in some way the capacity to capture, orient, determine, intercept, model, control, or secure the gestures, behaviors, opinions, or discourses of living beings” (p. 14), the Palapa Ring was intended to be the main infrastructure for digitized data transportation for information related to health, education, public service, and government procurement. Advanced and computerized data management is seen as a key for attaining efficiency and effectiveness in the process of bringing order to public administration and to the population.

As a governing apparatus, this infrastructure also plays a role in knowledge production. The Palapa Ring’s role in knowledge production is related to a number of discourses that were inscribed in the word palapa throughout the history of Indonesia. The historical tracing of the term ‘palapa’ and its connections to national identity, unity, security, development, and progress showed how the Palapa Ring gained its perceived agency as being able to contribute economic development and population welfare in the current globalized world. Based on the tracing of the actors, the tracing of the discourses, and an analysis of the

175

technical capacities of fiber-optic networks, I argued that the Palapa Ring is a hybrid, an entity that constitutes a blend of social elements and technical elements.

An examination of the circumstances surrounding the formation of the broadband development plan revealed that this policy was born out of a series of failed attempts to produce a similar plan that would be able to enroll many different actors, including a number of governmental agencies as well as some private organizations. Having learned from the previous failures, policymakers produced the current IBP using a multi-stakeholder approach and issued the policy using a higher legal framework than the previous plans (the

Precedential Decree). These measures would ensure the enrollment and the mobilization of the relevant actors in broadband development. These two factors could also be seen as a way to ensure that the Palapa Ring network could be fully realized (connecting the entire country with one uninterrupted network) after setbacks in the past.

My tracing of the relevant actors in efforts to build the Palapa Ring also showed that the Palapa Ring has gone through mutations and multiplications of identity in the hands of different actors. The Palapa Ring was first formulated as the “Archipelagic

Superhighway,” but this identity did not last when the economic crisis hit Indonesia by the end 1990s. The Palapa Ring gained its new identity when it was introduced in the First

Indonesia Infrastructure Summit in Jakarta, in an attempt to invite private investment to bring the Palapa Ring to fruition. From this moment, the Palapa Ring has been moving in several different directions in the hands of different actors. The Palapa Ring is still an ongoing undertaking, and the future of the Palapa Ring still remains to be seen.

176

The analysis of infrastructure development in this chapter also showed the ways in which the materiality of technology and discourses about technology, and the amalgamation of the two (technics and discourse), can be used for political purposes, to perpetuate a particular political agenda. This situation is not only limited to authoritarian regimes; it is also evident in more democratic and decentralized regimes, with a different process of translation. As the account in this chapter has demonstrated, while the political regime could mobilize and utilize the materiality of technology and discourse about technology and could translate other actors to certain actions rather easily because of its formidable power (as in the case of the building of the Palapa Satellite system by the Suharto administration), the more decentralized power in a more democratic system has to go through series of translations in order to enroll various actors in building a technological system (as in the case of the building of the Palapa Ring in the post-Suharto regime). This chapter also showed that the distribution of power in the decentralized system enabled different actors to use the materiality of the Palapa Ring and discourses about the technology for their own purposes, which led to the multiplication of the identities of this technological infrastructure.

In a sense, the State authority is no longer able to control these discourses and to dictate a single purpose of the Palapa Ring as a public infrastructure. In all of these instances, it shows that technology does indeed have politics (Winner, 1980). In the next chapter, I explore a different power mechanism in the development of Internet infrastructure, focusing on the development of the mobile communication network.

177

CHAPTER 4

The Adoption of 4G/ LTE Technology: the Action of Heterogeneous Engineers in the Adoption of Technological Innovation

We have been able to delegate to nonhumans not only force as we have known it for centuries but also values, duties, and ethics. It is because of this morality that we, humans, behave so ethically, no matter how weak and wicked we feel we are. The sum of morality does not only remain stable but increases enormously with the population of nonhumans (Latour, 1992, p. 232).

4.1. Introduction

More than two decades ago in the early 1990s, Bruno Latour wrote an article

entitled “Where is the Missing Masses: The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts” (1992)

where he made an analogy between physicists and sociologists regarding the “missing

masses”. He mentioned that physicists are constantly looking for the missing masses that

could explain the balance in the universe that the cosmologists could not satisfactorily

explain. Similarly, sociologists are also constantly looking for explanations of the things that

hold our society together, since the laws of moralities and the flexibility of human relations

do not seem strong and sturdy enough to tie all of us together to produce an orderly society.

He argued that to be able find the answer to this question, “we simply have to turn our

exclusive attention away from humans and look also at nonhumans” to find and to

understand “the hidden and despised social masses” (Latour, 1992, p. 227). To explain his

argument, Latour took two examples of two ‘mundane’ technologies (as the title indicates);

178

the seatbelt and the door hinge. He explains that the seatbelt warning in a car enforced the action of using seatbelt to the driver to obey the law that made for her/his own safety, even if she/he does not have the morality to obey the law. Latour said, “this assembly of a driver and a car obeys the law in such a way that it is impossible for a car to be at the same time moving

AND to have the driver without the belt on” (1992, pp. 225-226). The same also happens in the case of door hinges. We (humans) delegate the task of opening and closing the door to the door hinge since we cannot always count on people who open the door to close it again once they passed it, and since we are not always able to discipline or pay a concierge to do the task. We substitute the unreliable humans and delegate the task to nonhuman objects (Latour,

1992). The consequence of this delegation is the continuous progression and advancement of technological capacity to facilitate human activities. As Latour stated, “when humans are displaced and deskilled, nonhumans have to be upgraded and reskilled” (1992, p. 323). The result of the upgraded and reskilled nonhuman object is what we usually refer to technological innovation. This Latour’s assertion cannot be more relevant today in the advance telecommunication network that continuously assist our day to day communication activities.

The delegations of human roles to nonhuman counterparts make us have to move constantly between technical and social to fully understand the works of various social mechanisms, to which Akrich (1992) described, “[w]e also have to move between the inside and the outside of technical objects” (p. 206), as many of our daily decision are preconditioned by our nonhuman counterparts. Akrich (1992) has a compelling explanation

179

regarding the relation or the distribution of actions between human and nonhuman entities.

She explained that in producing an innovation, the innovators (or the designer or the engineers) inscribe the idea or the vision of the world into technical objects and how those objects will be able to do something for users. In return this nonhuman objects prescribe or impose certain behaviors to users to assist their actions. As a response, the users follow the prescription of the nonhuman objects; in other word, they subscribe to their nonhuman counterparts (Akrich, 1992; Latour, 1988).

The result of these processes are distributions of competence between human and nonhuman objects, which have taken place for a long time and in many different ways, to the point that human are not always aware of the processes anymore. In as sense, the activities of these objects as well as the process of distribution of competence between human and nonhuman collaborators become a black box. However, there are many cases that the processes of inscription – prescription – subscription are not taking place smoothly. As nothing can prevent the human users to behave differently from the vision inscribed by the designers or prescribed by technical object. To put it differently, the designers and the nonhuman objects are unable to truly enroll or to transform human actors behaviors according to a particular inscription/prescription.

These concepts of reskilling and upgrading nonhuman objects and the process of inscription – prescription – subscription are relevant to the case study in this chapter that aims to examine the process in adopting of the Long Term Evolution (popularly known as

4G/ LTE) in the context of Indonesian telecommunication sectors. This chapter focuses on

180

the ways in which this new technology is woven into the specificities of the Indonesian social, political, and technological landscape. Through this case study, I want to bring forward three important points. First, I see that the LTE technological innovation is part of the ‘upgrading and reskilling’ nonhuman actor that brought broader social repercussion. As I will show in this chapter, this upgrading and reskilling technology not only enhance the performance of nonhuman actors, but through its technical prescription, also changes

Indonesia’s telecommunication industry, the regulations of the mobile-communication sector, and the behaviors of users in a meaningful way.

Second, despite the global nature of LTE technology - in which its engineers inscribe a particular vision for it users no matter where the technology is used - its adoption faces the specificity of social and political situations in a particular region. The situation of

LTE adoption in Indonesia, for example, are characterized by, among other, a rather disorganize radio spectrum allocations, a disparity of LTE market among different regions in the country, a situation of spectrum crisis, and a vision to expand mobile broadband to 100% urban population and 52% rural population by 2019. To be able to fully utilize this new technology in the country, these considerations were accommodated through a particular regulation in the adoption of LTE. This specific regulation generates unique LTE adoption to

Indonesia. Hence, I argue that in the case of LTE adoption in Indonesia, the inscription engineers’ vision in LTE’s technical architecture is extended with and complicated by the inscription of the Indonesian telecommunication regulator in the form of spectrum regulation.

In other words, the prescription of LTE technology is not only coming from the agency of the

181

technological object, but it is further extended with the prescription of spectrum regulation.

To follow Law’s argument (1987), I argue that the technological change in telecommunication sector through the adoption of LTE in Indonesia was produced by heterogeneous engineering, which not only orchestrate and arrange the technological conditions, but also the economic, political, and social conditions in technological adoption.

Law (1979) explained heterogeneous engineering aptly by saying, “…, an explanation of technological form rests on a study of both the conditions and the tactics of system building”

(p.113). It is both these conditions and tactics in the technology adoption that I will examine and explain in this chapter.

Third, I identify in the course of the early LTE adoption in Indonesia there were some resistance came from operators that were disinclined to provide LTE service nationwide, in districts and municipality across the country just as expected by state regulator. They only plan to provide the service in a handful of big cities based on the calculation of supply and demand, at least in the near future. Similar to the notion that users could always behave differently and resist to subscribe to the action prescribed by technology, the analysis in this case study shows the way telecom operators reluctant to fully subscribe to the vision of the telecom regulator that is inscribed to the vision in the regulation.

Throughout this chapter, I trace the chain of translations by following the movements of the relevant actors in the process of LTE adoption in Indonesia. And in

182

following these actors, I describe the ways in which the power mechanism among them took place; in the ways in which one actor tries to modify, displace, or translate other actors. It is important for me to point out in this introduction the examination of LTE adoption in this chapter is focusing only in the early stage of the adoption in the level of regulatory actions and industrial strategies, which taken both by telecom regulator and operators. That is to say, the analysis in this chapter does not concern to the LTE adoption in the users level. The study of the users’ LTE adoption could be conducted as a continuation of this study.

The chapter, then, will be structured in four different sections. In the first section,

I will describe the situation of the mobile communication industry in Indonesia to contextualize the case of LTE adoption. The section will explain a brief background on changes in the market, the composition of users, and the perceived need for advancement in technology. In the second section, I look into the technical architecture of LTE to describe the ‘upgrading and reskilling’ of technological object and to see the vision that is inscribed in the LTE technology. In a sense, I try to ‘interview’ the technology and to ask how it can afford the capacity to generate changes as compared with previous and existing technologies, and to examine the prescription of this technology to its potential users. In the third section, I analyze the ways in which the prescription of LTE technology is extended through the national regulation of LTE adoption, in order to facilitate as well as to authorize the use of the technology in the country. While in the previous section I examine the vision of the engineers that is inscribed in technology, in this section I will examine the vision of the state regulators that is inscribed in the regulation of LTE adoption. Lastly, in the fourth section, I

183

am focusing on the response of the industry in adopting LTE, and describe the ways in which the telecom operators were reluctant to provide LTE services in rural areas.

4.2. The race to be the first and the fastest: the hype of 4G/ LTE in Indonesia mobile broadband market

While I was conducting my fieldwork in Jakarta in 2015, 4G/ LTE was a buzzword in mobile communication industry. Almost all mobile communication operators promoted 4G/ LTE service in their marketing campaign. Various billboards with bright colors and enormous typeface of “4G/ LTE” could be easily found in many corners of

Jakarta’s main streets. A number of operators claimed to be the first operator to adopt the technology in the country, and the one who will be able to provide the fastest service to their customers. My personal experiences, however, was somewhat contradictory to this claim.

While my mobile carrier claimed that it provided LTE service to its customers, my attempt to connect to the network through my mobile device was always failed. There was an option in the mobile app to subscribe to the LTE service with the promotion price for unlimited data communication for a month. However, each time I tapped this option it always resulted in

“unable to connect to the network”. Thus, had to stay with the option for 3G service that charged me Rp. 150.000 (equal to US$ 12) for 4 GB data that would last for a month.

Figure 6 shows several advertising that I found from different telecom operators that aimed to promote the service to the customers. The words ‘the first’, ‘the fastest’,’ the widest’ (in coverage), (pertama, tercepat, terluas, in Indonesia) are used in various campaign materials to describe the superiority of the use 4G/ LTE service as compare to the existing

184

services. One of the campaign materials mentions that the particular operator will be able to provide mobile Internet service up to 100 Mbps, while another campaign offers internet connection ten time faster than the other competitors. Of course, to critical costumers these ambiguous marketing jargons beg further question, ‘does the mentioned internet speed refers to the capability of 4G/ LTE technology, or does it refers to the actual speed that the operator can provide to its customers?’. At the time of my fieldwork, LTE service was in its early market emergence. There were at least three operators (among nine cellular operators) that widely known had provided the service by the end of 2014, but only to a small fraction of users in several big cities, such as Jakarta, Surabaya, Bali and Bandung, whereas other operators announced that they were in their preparation to start to launch their LTE service.

185

Figure 6. The figure shows some examples of various marketing materials to promote 4G/ LTE technology from different operators in Indonesia. The translation of the text in top left picture is “Smartfren 4G/ LTE: extensive, fast, and stable network. The translation of the text in bottom left picture is “Bolt Super 4G/ LTE: 10 time faster. And the translation of the text in bottom right picture is, “Hotrod 4G/ LTE: the first time in Indonesia, real mobile 4G/LTE. Experience new access up to 100Mbps.”

To the consumers in the emerging mobile market like Indonesia, where mobile

Internet users are primarily young generation who actively engage in social media, the

186

promise of faster broadband connection with the widest coverage is particularly enticing.

Thus, there was an air of positive sentiment, and perhaps an excitement, among the users to the idea of wider availability of 4G/LTE service. Throughout my fieldwork in Jakarta, I found many of these young users are in active search of service providers that able to accommodate their social media activities, particularly for mobile online chatting or photo and video uploading, which need fairly stable and large bandwidth. They would not hesitate to try any service that offers faster Internet connection with the cheapest price.

In my observation and in my experience as a mobile user in Indonesia, the practice of using the mobile services from two or more operators at the same time is not uncommon. I also engaged in this practice. While I used Telkomsel carrier for my mobile phone, I also used BOLT carrier for Internet connection for my computer and tablet. I had to depend on mobile broadband services because I could not have access to the fixed broadband network (with the exception during my fieldwork in the office of MCIT). The pre-paid payment scheme allows this practice easily. Many other users would also use two or more

SIM cards (subscriber identity module – the chip that stores mobile subscriber identity) from different operators in one device. It would be easy for them to discard one operator service once they do not feel any benefit, or if other operators offers a better deal. This situation leads to what is seemingly to be a tight competition among mobile communication operators in the country.

Following the global trend in mobile communication, the mobile data traffic in

187

Indonesia started to emerge through the introduction of early smartphones devices, such as

Apple iPhone in 2007, but it was only used by small number of users. Mobile broadband/ wireless Internet communication began to gain traction in Indonesia through the expansion of

Blackberry mobile in urban regions, particularly with the popularity of messenger application

Blackberry Messenger (BBM) and also Blackberry AppWorld.30 The significant growth of mobile data traffic in Indonesia started to occur around 2010 and 2011.

Currently, many electronic shopping malls in Jakarta, and most likely other major cities in the country, are flooded by various products of mobile devices from China that offer relatively cheaper price. These products instantly attract young users who have not yet earned their own income and also other consumers with lower income. Also contribute to the growth of mobile broadband communication was the price competition among the telecommunication operators, in which an operator try to beat other competitors’ price and offer the cheapest price in the market. This has been took place since the beginning of market expansion of mobile Internet. To date, one can get 1GB mobile data as cheap as less than

US$ 2 (or IDR 25,000) in several big cities and urban areas, such as Jakarta.

Indonesia is one of the countries in the world that has high dependency on mobile broadband for Internet connection. The majority of Indonesian Internet users obtain their

Internet service from mobile cellular service on daily basis, either at home or on the go. As

30 Kevin, J. (2011), Indonesia, a Blackberry Nation?, TechinAsia.com [https://www.techinasia.com/indonesia- a-blackberry-nation] (accessed February 2016). Einhorn, B. (2012) Indonesia still love their Blackberry, Bloomberg news.com [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-12-06/indonesians-still-love-their-blackberrys] (accessed February 2016)

188

survey from Association of Indonesian Internet Providers (APJII) and University of

Indonesia shows 85% of the users gain their access to Internet through mobile phone (APJII,

2015). This situation, however, is not unique to Indonesia; the report from UN Broadband

Commission mentions many citizens in developing countries obtain their first experience of the Internet through a mobile device (Broadband Commission Report, 2013). The high dependency of wireless network, as in Indonesia and other developing countries, is tied to several factors. Among them is the expansion of mobile broadband service that is faster than fixed broadband service because mobile broadband network could be deployed much faster with less initial investment. As has been shown in the previous chapter, the construction and the deployment of fixed broadband network in Indonesia is proven to be a complicated matter that took a lengthy time, great cost, and rather convoluted process. Another factors that contribute to this high dependency to mobile broadband, as has been indicated before, is the pervasiveness of mobile devices, such smartphone, tablet, laptop, and other devices that can be acquired in a cheaper price. According to Indonesia Broadband Plan document, the high dependency to mobile broadband has led Indonesia to a spectrum crisis up to 16 MHz in

2013 (IBP, 2014). This crisis is predicted to be worsening by the end of 2016, where there will be a lack of spectrum up to 157 MHz (IBP, 2014).

In theory, there are three main ways to increase network capacity of mobile broadband (Cox, 2014). The first way is through generating smaller cells (or sectors, or areas that is covered by base station control). Since there is a maximum data rate that a single cell can handle, breaking up a cell into a several smaller cells can increase its network capacity.

189

Smaller cells can be generated through the building of more base station controls (BSC). The use of this method is depending on the consideration and the calculation of investment from the operators to build more BSC. The second way is through increasing the bandwidth.

However, the availability of radio spectrum for telecommunication is limited since it is also used for other diverse applications, such as military communication, radio and television broadcasting, radio astronomy, scientific research, etc. Furthermore, radio spectrum is a finite resource, and there is no way to create extra spectrum no matter how much we need it. The third way is through the improvement of mobile technology to provide higher data capacity.

This is where 4G/ LTE come to attention. Mobile telecommunication technology has been progressing since its first inception, from the invention of 1G, 2G, 3G, and up to the current

4G/ LTE technology, and each generation of technology has brought an improvement in the capacity for communication traffic. 4G/ LTE technology has the characteristic of technological advancement that increase data traffic capacity with higher spectral efficiency,

- or ability to use radio spectrum more efficiently (Cox, 2014).

It is this third technique of increasing mobile network capacity that took mobile telecommunication market by force around the world in last few years, including in

Indonesia. Hence, the arrival of 4G/ LTE technology was embraced with excitement.

Consumers are excited to experiences faster and better mobile communication.

Telecommunication operators seem excited to sell the 4G/ LTE service to generate more profit. Smartphone industry is also excited to produce various smartphone with 4G/ LTE enabled technology. Even the state government readily embraced the technology and

190

encouraged LTE technological adoption. However, despite of all these excitements, as will be shown later in the context of mobile market in Indonesia, only small fraction of population that is actually impacted by this new mobile technology, which mostly in urban areas across the country. The majority of mobile communication users are still predominantly use mobile services for voice and text messages (2G technology) and not mobile broadband. Hence, although there is marketing hype of 4G/ LTE adoption in Indonesia, the users’ demand for this technology for mobile telecommunication is not as much as what media led to believe.

Also, although telecom operators seem to be ready to embrace this new technology, this research reveals there is a reluctance among the operators in fully operating the 4G/LTE across the country, as will be explain later in the chapter.

What I want to emphasize in this section is that the arrival of 4G/ LTE in

Indonesia, as in the case in many other countries, was welcomed enthusiastically for many different reasons. This technology is believed to be able to deliver a better user experience with faster Internet connection. It is then believed to boost the mobile broadband market that will be able to generate more profit for telecommunication operators and technology vendors.

It is also believed to have improved traffic capacity and to use radio spectrum efficiently.

Hence, 4G/ LTE seems to have all answers to the concerns and interests of the users, telecommunication industry, and the State regulator. Hence, I want to look closely to the

‘inside’ of LTE to show how such technological affordance is possible, and what kind of vision that is inscribe in it technological architecture, before I further examine the different interests from different actors (particularly state regulator and telecom operators) in relation

191

to the LTE adoption, and the ways in which each actors took action to further those interests.

The explanation of this LTE technological architecture in the next section will help to make sense the LTE prescriptions that have to be followed in order to adopt and deploy this technology. The understanding of technological prescriptions will also help to understand the changing it required in the specificity of mobile industry in Indonesia prior to its adoption in the country, which produce a unique form of adoption that different is different from other countries.

4.3. The inside of LTE technology: the inscription of efficiency and the prescription of modernizing technology

The technology for Long Term Evolution (LTE) was develop by 3GPP (3rd

Generation Partnership Project), a collaboration of seven organizations that focus on telecommunication and radio industry from six different countries/regions; USA, China,

Europe, Korea, Japan, India. Within the organization of 3GPP there are number of working groups, named as Technical Specification Groups (TSG) that has their specific responsible area. These TSGs meet regularly to present and discuss their works, which further brought to higher plenary of TSG SA (System Aspects Technical Specification Group) that has responsibility to oversee the coordination and the progress of work.31 This organization has the mission to pursue a number of objectives in improving mobile communication technology, among others, to improve radio technology for higher data rates and increased capacity, to improve spectral efficiency, to improve energy saving and cost efficiency, to

31 More detail about the organization of 3GPP can be found in “About 3GPP http://www.3gpp.org/about-3gpp [accessed December 2015)

192

develop channel aggregation, and a number of other objectives.32 Thus, this organization aims to find the ways to enhance the technology to meet the ever-growing demand in mobile communication.

The vision of enhancing the mobile technology was inscribed in each innovation produced by 3GPP, including a number of LTE versions. The first version of LTE was finalized in December 2008, which named as Release 8. After this first release there were several sequence of releases until the latest version of Release 12, known as Enhancements to

LTE-Advanced, released in September 2014. LTE is developed from the previous mobile technology of the Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) and the Global

System for Mobile Communications (GSM). The previous technology before LTE is generally known as the progression of 1G, 2G with variations of 2.5G, and 3G with variations of 3.5G.

What significantly changed among these different technological versions is that each new version provides higher data transfer capacity from the previous version, while at the same time also improving the spectral efficiency. The early mobile Internet was first introduced with 2G technology, in which it incorporated packet switching domain to core network so it could afford and handle voice communication as well as data transfer communication. The widely use technological standards in this generation is GSM (Global

System for Mobile). The 3G systems are further enhanced radio transmission technology in the 2G systems that could handle more data peak rates and at the same time use the available

32 Ibid

193

radio spectrum more efficiently. The 3G system that has the widest application worldwide was developed by Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS). The 3G system developed by UMTS derive from GSM technology, by changing some parts of the GSM system architecture while maintain some other parts (Cox, 2014).

Looking closer to the system architecture of LTE and comparing it to previous

UMTS and GSM technology will help us to understand how LTE affords technological efficiency for mobile communication. The schema of the network architecture as presented in

Figure 7 shows the simplification of architecture in LTE technology. The figure below presents three main components of mobile communication that consists of; (1) the core network; (2) the radio access network; and (3) the mobile phone (I will only focus on the first and the second part). Below is the further simplified explanation of the ways these two systems works.

194

Figure 7. Evolution of the system architecture from GSM and UMTS to LTE (Cox, 2014)

In the first component, the core network, of the 3G system has two separate domain for handling two separate tasks; one for handing voice communication, and another for handling data transfer communication. The circuit switched (CS) domain is responsible in transporting phone calls within the coverage area of one mobile operator as well as to traditional fixed-line telephone system through the public switched telephone network

(PSTN). It is done through a dedicated two-way connection between two individual calls so the connection can have minimal delay and constant data rate. This technique is rather inefficient for conducting data transfer because data rate can vary widely (Cox, 2014). That is why packet switching (PS) domain is responsible in handling data transfer. Identical with the

195

Internet, data stream is divided into data packets equipped with identification of address and required destination device. While in CS domain there is a dedicated two-way communication between two calls, the network resources in PS domain are shared amongst all users, so the technique is more efficient than circuit switching (Cox, 2014).

Meanwhile in the LTE system, there are no two separate domains for handling voice and data transfer communication. In the LTE system, the packet switches domain is replaced with Evolve Packet Core (EPC) that routes the data packets using the Internet

Protocol (IP). There is no replacement of circuit switches (CS) in EPC. The EPC is designed to be similar with the Internet, where the channel merely transport information regardless the type of information content (whether is voice, image, text, video, etc.). This changing in LTE architecture affords the optimization of data traffic delivery. Since this system is different from the traditional circuit switched network for handling voice application, and it still needed to be able to communicate with the previous system, LTE mobile makes a voice call using two main techniques. First, by using an external network of the IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) to set up, manage, and divide voice data to smaller package over IP call

(Cox, 2014). Second, through circuit switched fallback, in which the network can transfer the phone call to 2G or 3G cell so that a mobile device can contact the 2G/3G circuit switched domain (Cox, 2014). Hence, the first system simplification is the replacement of two different domains in 3G core network (i.e. circuit switches (CS) for voice and packet switches (PC) for data) to become a single domain in LTE core network (i.e. Evolve Packet

Core (EPC)).

196

The second component, or the radio access network, is responsible in handling the communication between the core network and the user’s device. In UMST and GSM (or

3G system) there are two separate parts of radio access network; (1) the GSM EDGE radio access network (GERAN); and the UMTS terrestrial radio access network (UTRAN) (see

Figure 7). The important component for the radio access network is base station, popularly known as BTS (base transceiver station for GSM) and Node B (for UMTS). A base station is equipped with sets of antennas that have function to communicate with the user’s device through a certain radio frequency (or carrier frequency). In the UMST and GSM, the base stations are grouped and controlled by devices called radio network controllers (RNCs) for

UMTS, and base station controllers (BSCs) for GSM. RNC and BCS have more significant functions for two tasks; first, to transport the user's voice information and data packets between the base stations and the core network; and second, to control mobile's radio communications hand over from one cell/sector to another (Cox, 2014).

The architecture of radio access network in LTE system is significantly different from UMTS and GSM. The function of UMTS terrestrial radio access network (UTRAN) is replaced by evolved UMTS terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN). Additionally, the base station in LTE is known as eNodeB or eNB. The significant difference is eNB handle communication between base stations and the core network directly. It also handles the communication between multiple devices in the cell/ sector and control handover decision. In other words, eNB handle the function of both RNC and Node B in the previous technology.

Since there is no controller element or a centralized radio network controller, this simplifies

197

architecture in LTE allows higher response time. Hence, the LTE system cut the two steps communication from core network to user device (core network – BTS –BSC – user device) to become just one step (core network – eNB – user device). This shortcut enables LTE to afford higher speed data transfer.

From this simplified explanation of the technological architecture of the LTE technology, we can see an example of the ‘upgrading and reskilling’ nonhuman actor’s capacity as a consequence of human delegation to its agency in the Latourian sense. In the

LTE technical architecture, 3GPP inscribes the vision to enhance capacity for data rates and to improve spectral efficiency through a number of ways. The first one is through the simplification of core network component, where the two separate elements for handling voice and data packet communication was merged into single packet switched domain. The second way is through the replacement of two elements in 3G system (RNC and Node B) into a single eNB element, which affords lower delay in transferring data packets between network elements and across the air interface, and therefore, affords higher speed data transfer. This conversion two system of voice and data to become single data packet is able to produce a higher spectral efficiency (or higher capacity of information rate over a given bandwidth). With this feature, LTE can be used with bandwidths ranging from 1.4 MHz, 3

MHz, 5 MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz, and 20 MHz (for LTE Release 8). (Cox, 2014, p. 13)

In return, LTE prescribes a number of technological prescriptions to its potential users to enable them to use this technology. There are two prescriptions that are relevant to

198

the case study in this chapter, which I will further focus on. The first prescription is a specific requirement of radio bandwidth to deploy LTE. The second prescription is the requirement of radio equipment modernization from the previous radio technology in 3G system to LTE system (in a way that operators have to update their radio equipment to be able to roll out

LTE service). While the latter prescription became the main concern of the telecommunication operators, the former prescription was the main concern of the telecommunication regulator, since the regulation of spectrum allocation is the domain of telecom regulator. In the case of Indonesia, the regulatory actor issued some additional spectrum regulation prior to the further deployment of LTE in the country. I argue that this additional spectrum regulation is an extension or an addition to the technological prescription that is required by LTE. In the following section will examine this additional prescription that came from regulation, and the ways in which the vision of development from the regulators was inscribe in the spectrum regulation. Further examination of the prescription to update radio equipment for telecom operators will also be addressed later in the chapter.

4.4. The endeavor to achieve spectrum optimization: LTE adoption from the regulator’s point of view

The LTE adoption from the regulator’s standpoint was primarily related to the concern of the use of radio spectrum, at least in this early stage (as this section will show in detail). The fact that Indonesia is one of the countries that have high dependency on the cellular network is part of the situation that brought up this concern. While the demand of radio spectrum is continue to increase, there is a finite resource of spectrum since it is a

199

natural resource that cannot be added or subtracted, just as we cannot add or subtract a piece land on the surface of the earth. Not only for telecommunication purpose, radio spectrum is also needed for many other activities, such as communication systems for navigation and transportation, military and security, industry, agriculture, scientific research, radio and television broadcasting and many others. The Table of Radio Frequency Spectrum Allocation issued in the Ministry Regulation No. 25/ 2014 indicates there are at least 20 different purposes of the use of radio frequency in Indonesia (MCIT, 2014). The Directorate General of Resources and Application of Post and Information Technology (Dirjen Sumberdaya dan

Perangkat Pos dan Informatika, hereafter DG SDPPI), a division in MCIT, is the main agency that has the authority to oversee the use of radio frequency in Indonesia.

As part of natural resources, each sovereign country in the world has the right to manage and to regulate the radio spectrum in its territory – to follow the logic of the state sovereignty over territory. However, the use and the allocation of radio spectrum in a specific country adhere to the international treaty coordinated by International

Telecommunication Union (ITU), which establishes the rules for radio spectrum named

Radio Regulation. This regulation is used as main framework for spectrum allocation worldwide, and Indonesia, as a member of ITU since 1950, also complies with Radio

Regulation for spectrum allocation in the country. The ratification of the ITU Radio

Regulation to become national regulation is implemented through the Ministry Regulation of

Indonesian Table of Radio Frequency Spectrum Allocation, which periodically revised according to the emendation of Radio Regulation treaty (Setiawan, 2010). In the case of

200

spectrum use that is connected to different or neighboring countries, ITU recommended to conduct bilateral coordination with each different country. In the case of Indonesia, for example, DG SDPPI together with IDA (Infocomm Development Authority) Singapore conduct a forum named BCCM (Border Communication Coordination Meeting) twice a year, and DG SDPPI together with MCMC (Malaysian Communication and Multimedia

Commission) conduct a forum named Joint Committee on Communications (JCC) once a year to coordinate and discuss technical issues related to the use of radio frequency in the border areas (Setiawan, 2010). a. The Current Radio Spectrum Assignments for Telecommunication

Following the spectrum allocation in ITU Radio Regulation in Region 3 (where

Indonesia is located), DG SDPPI, as the focal actors in the spectrum allocation management in the country, allocates radio spectrum at frequencies of 450 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz,

1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2.3 GHz, 2.4GHz, 3.3 GHz, 5.8 GHz for telecommunication purposes. These purposes are divided into two categories; (1) for mobile cellular network, which use the lower band spectrum (from 450 MHz to 2100 MHz); (2) for Frequency

Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) network (specifically for data traffic network), which use the upper band spectrum (from 2.3 GHz to 5.8 GHz) (DG SDPPI, 2013). Currently, mobile cellular network in Indonesia employs several different technological standards that occupy different spectrum; for instance there are CDMA in 450 MHz band, CDMA in 800

MHz band, GSM in 900 MHz band, GSM in 1800 MHz band, PCS1900 in 1900 MHz, and

UMTS in 2100 MHz band. This allocation can be seen in the Figure 8 below.

201

Figure 8. This figure shows the spectrum allocations for mobile communication access in Indonesia (DG SDPPI, Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Indonesia). The term “dan” in the first column means ‘together with.” (figure cited from Setiawan, 2013).

There are at least nine mobile operators that are holding licenses to use spectrum band for mobile cellular network, which include five operators holding license for CDMA and four operators holding license for GSM/UMTS/HSPA (Setiawan, 2013).33 The detail of the assignments of the spectrum to each operator can be seen in Table 1. The use of different technological standard is not without consequences, as it required a certain spectrum bandwidth allocated as a ‘guard band’ to avoid frequency interferences. The use of multiple

33 The “2 x” (2 times) notation in spectrum allocation means a pair of the number of bandwidth. For example if an operator holds 2 x 5 MHz it means the particular operator has license to operate a pair of 5 MHz bandwidth for uplink (communication from BTS/ Node B to users’ devices) and for downlink (communication from users’ devices to BTS/ Node B).

202

bands for guard band also plays a part in hindering the optimizations of spectrum use. As in

Indonesia’s case, the guard bands are required between GSM900 vs CDMA 850, and also between UMTS 2100 vs PCS1900 (Setiawan, 2013).

GSM 850 MHz 900 MHz 1800 MHz 2100 MHz Total paired Operator Spectrum Telkomsel/ 2 x 4.92 MHz 2 x 7.5 MHz 2 x 22.5 MHz 2 x15 MHz 49.92 MHz Telkom Indosat 2 x 2.46 MHz 2 x 10.0 MHz 2 x 20.0 MHz 2 x10 MHz 42.46 MHz

XL/Axis -- 2 x 7.5 MHz 2 x 22.5 MHz 2 x25 MHz 55 MHz Hutchison -- -- 2 x 10 MHz 2 x 10 MHz 20 MHz

CDMA 450 MHz 800 MHz Operator Sampoerna 2 x 7.5 MHz -- 7.5 MHz Telekom Bakrie -- 2 x 11.5 MHz 11.5 MHz Telecom Telkomsel/ -- 2 x 5 MHz 5 MHz Telkom Mobile 8/ -- 2 x 5 MHz 5 MHz Smartfren Indosat -- 2 x 5 MHz 5 MHz

Table 1. The table of spectrum assignments for mobile cellular network to nine telecom operators in Indonesia (source: DG SDPPI, 2013)

The figure and table above shows the multiple assignments of spectrum for mobile network purpose to a number of telecom operators, both for mobile cellular network and for Frequency Broadband Wireless Access (BWA), to fulfill the demand for mobile communication services. With this current multiple spectrum assignments, the Indonesian

Broadband Plan document mentions that Indonesia is currently experiencing spectrum crisis, and with the rapid growth of data traffic pattern as have been seen so far, it was estimated this crisis could reach up to 157 MHz by the end of 2016 (IBP document, 2014). The

203

situation where there is a lack of radio spectrum for carrying information, or popularly known as spectrum crunch, could lead to slow data transfer speed and escalating case of dropped calls. These situations are definitely not preferable for the development of mobile broadband market. b. The Failure in the Attempt for Broadcasting Digital Switchover

The information from Figure 8 shows that there is still a potential addition of spectrum as much as 2 x 45 MHz to be used for telecommunication that could possibly relieves the problem of spectrum crunch in the country. This additional spectrum can be generated from the end product of digitalization of television broadcasting, or known as digital switchover (DSO) or analogue switch-off (ASO). The idea of DSO is to replace the analogue technology that uses larger spectrum bandwidth with digital technology that could afford a narrower and more efficient use of bandwidth. This process is widely known in telecom industry worldwide as spectrum refarming. The spectrum that is released from this broadcasting digitization, or digital dividend, can be repurposed for mobile broadband access

(Minehane, 2013). Television broadcasting in Indonesia at the moment occupies spectrum

520 MHz-820 MHz, and the result of spectrum refarming should it be able to finalized, is at

694 MHz-820 MHz. The schema of radio spectrum before and after DSO can be seen in

Figure 9 below.

204

Figure 9. The spectrum diagram of digital switchover that expected to generate digital dividend (Minehane, 2014)

While many countries have finished their DSO process, Indonesia is one among several countries that is still not able to finalize the television broadcasting digitization, although the process has been started since around 2012. During my fieldwork in DG SDPPI in Jakarta, I came to know that the main reason of the delay of DSO process is the resistance that came from the broadcasting industry to the DSO scheme proposed by Directorate

General of Post and Information Technology Administration (Direktorat Jenderal

Penyelenggaraan Pos dan Informatika, hereafter DG PPI), a division in MICT that oversee the management of television broadcasting. The unsuccessful endeavor to obtain additional spectrum for mobile service can be seen as an inability of DG PPI to propose a digitalization scheme that was able to interest and to persuade actors in broadcast industry. It can also be seen as the lack of power of the proposed regulatory scheme to enroll and to mobilize these actors in the digitalization process.

Part of the main objections of broadcasting industry actors in resisting the DSO

205

scheme is the rearrangement of control over the television broadcast practice. In the analogue broadcasting system, broadcasting companies have the control on the whole process of broadcasting operation (from the control over content production, distribution, transmission, to the control over broadcasting spectrum). However, in the DG PPI scheme for DSO, the control over broadcasting operation would be divided into two different parts, which would be managed by two different entities. The first part is the operation for content production that would be managed by entity named Lembaga Penyiaran Penyelenggara Program Siaran

– hereafter LPPPS; and the second part is the operation for transmission and control over broadcasting spectrum that would be managed by entity named Lembaga Penyiaran

Penyelenggara Penyiaran Multipleksing – hereafter LPPPM. Hence, there would be a new entity in digital broadcasting operation that has no precedent in the previous analogue broadcasting (which is LPPPM). An existing broadcasting company could actually be an

LPPPM and LPPPS at the same time, since the requirement to LPPPM is to have spectrum license for broadcasting (which all broadcasting companies possessed). Thus, they would still be able to maintain control on overall broadcasting operation. However, the point of objection from broadcasting companies is the requirement to participate auction process to be an LPPPM. They see that there is no guarantee for them to be an LPPPM should they are failed in the auction process. They considered this as violation to their right as broadcasting companies that has been granted by the existing National Broadcasting Law No. 32/ 2002.

A number of broadcasting companies, particularly those that are the members of

Indonesian Network Television Association (ATVJI) and Indonesian Association of Local

206

Television (ATVLI), saw this new DSO regulation has no concern in protecting the interest of broadcasting companies. The scheme of DSO proposed by DG PPI was considered as detrimental to the broadcasting industry. They also questioned the legality of the DSO regulation in annulling their right over the use of spectrum that has been granted by the

National Broadcasting Law. The DSO regulation was only based on the Ministerial

Regulation No. 22/ 2011, which has lower legal standing than the National Broadcasting Act as far as legality is concerned.

Later, they brought this DSO regulation to Indonesian Supreme Court for judicial review on the basis that the regulation disregarded the higher regulation of the National

Broadcasting Law 2002. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the broadcasting companies, and therefore, the Ministerial Regulation 22/ 2011 for DSO was deemed unconstitutional. As a result of this court case, MCIT then issued a new Ministerial Regulation for DSO without stating the exact time for digital switchover to be effectively finalized. Without a specific timeframe, the new regulation is perceived as having a very weak enforcement to digitize broadcasting industry. As of 2015, the digital switchover in Indonesia is still failed to materialize, therefore, there is no additional bandwidth available for mobile broadband network that could potentially help to solve spectrum crisis.

These were a number of circumstances prior to the government-led initiative or encouragement to adopt LTE. On one hand, there was a situation of spectrum crisis as described in IBP document, where the spectrum allocated for mobile communication was

207

nearly insufficient to provide an effective communication service. This situation linked to the finite spectrum resources, the high dependency on wireless infrastructure, the exponential growth of the use of mobile broadband, and the assignment of spectrum to relatively high number of different telecommunication operators. On the other hand, there was an impediment to obtain the potential additional spectrum from the digital switch over process due to the inability of DG PPI, as the broadcasting regulator, to compel or to translate broadcasting industry to go through the process of broadcasting digitization. From the time when the Supreme Court decision to rule out the DSO scheme from DG PPI and pronounce it was unconstitutional, there is still no effective scheme in place to conduct DSO for broadcasting industry. Hence, the additional spectrum to be repurposed for mobile communication seems will not be available anytime soon.

c. The Steps for LTE Adoption

Despite these challenges, the DG SDPPI as the main regulatory agency that oversee the use of spectrum continued to consider some other ways to improve mobile broadband network. The mobile technology advancement through LTE was seen as one way to optimize the use of spectrum for mobile communication. According to World Bank expert who provide consultation in DG SDPPI, Scott Minehane, the discussion regarding to the planning to adopt LTE in the country has been started among regulatory bodies since as early as 2011 (Minehane, personal communication, November 22, 2014). These series of discussions, then, was taken further in a more detail in DG SDPPI with the assistance from the World Bank, as part of Indonesian request to World Bank in the Indonesia Infrastructure

208

Support Program (INIS). From the point of view of the regulator (in this case DG SDPPI) the motivations to support LTE adoption, among others, are to optimize the radio spectrum allocation, to improve the mobile Internet access, and to eventually provide more affordable and reliable mobile communication service (Minehane, personal communication, November

22, 2014).

While several operators have launched their LTE service using their existing spectrum, they only provided the service regionally (i.e. the service only in several big cities, such as Jakarta, Bali, Bandung, and Surabaya). What DG SDPPI envisioned, however, is to drive the use of LTE not only in a handful of big cities, but also in the districts and municipalities across the country (Minehane, 2014). The talking of LTE adoption was frequently tied to the goal the Indonesia Broadband Plan (IBP) for mobile access. The IBP specifically indicates the goal by 2019 is to provide access of mobile broadband to 100% of urban population, and to 52% of rural population. In terms of the access speed, IBP indicate the goal by 2019 is to increase access speed up to 20 Mbps in the urban areas, and 10 Mbps in rural areas (IBP, 2014).

As I have explained in the previous section, one of the prescriptions in utilizing

LTE is the specific radio bandwidth requirement. Although the LTE can be deployed in the range of spectrum from 1.4 MHz, 3 MHz, 5 MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz, to 20 MHz (see previous section), the wider band would be able to provide the most effective LTE service.

What the DG SDPPI decided to do was to take action in organizing the necessary spectrum

209

requirement to be able to launch LTE to wider regions. This was part of the DG SDPPI project during my fieldwork in this regulatory office. Hence, I was able to follow some discussions regarding the strategies taken by DG SDPPI in order to drive telecom operators to provide LTE service nationwide.

With the assistance of World Bank telecommunication expert, DG SDPPI saw the possibility to adopt the LTE technology with the utilization of either band 900 MHz,

1800 MHz and 2100 MHz (see Figure 8). According to World Bank consultation document, based on several technical and industrial considerations, the band 1800 has several advantages compare to the other two bands (Minehane, 2014). For technical considerations, the advantages include; (1) band 1800 MHz can afford relatively wide coverage area that is suitable for urban and rural areas; (2) all current GSM operators can re-use their existing network assets, e.g. antenna cables of GSM1800 or WCDMA-HSPA2100; (3) operators can deploy multi-Radio Access Network (see the explanation of LTE technological architecture in the previous section) with simultaneous LTE and GSM capabilities, so they will be able to support large Indonesian GSM consumers while simultaneously deploying LTE.

As for industrial considerations, the advantages of LTE in 1800 MHz include; (1) all current Indonesian GSM operators have sufficient bandwidth in 1800 MHz to scale LTE; and (2) the mature ecosystem of mobile phone devices LTE1800 with 944 type of devices available in market and with annual growth of 129% (Minehane, 2014). In addition,

LTE1800 currently is the main global roaming band, and supported by more or less 43 % of

210

all LTE capable devices (Minehane, 2014). With all these technical and industrial considerations, band 1800 MHz was considered a better option to be utilized for LTE.

To encourage the operators to adopt and to operate LTE technology in 1800

MHz, DG SDPPI took a number of actions to update and to modernize a number of regulations to be relevant for the application of the new technology. According to Minehane, this modernization of mobile broadband regulations was part of the World Bank assistance to

DG SDPPI (Minehane, personal communication, November 22, 2014). Minehane stated many telecommunication regulations in Indonesia are still needed to be updated with the technological changes that have taken place in telecom sector (Minehane, personal communication, November 22, 2014). An important example that related to the case of LTE adoption is the spectrum licensing system.

The use of radio spectrum for mobile communication in Indonesia is regulated through licensing system, where the MCIT (through the DG SDPPI) as the representation of

State authority granting the license to telecommunication operators as the authorization to use a particular spectrum. Parts of the spectrum licensing system in Indonesia still determine a specific type of technology to be used in a particular band. For example, the utilization of

450 MHz band is still technology specific for CDMA and 2100 MHz band is specific for

GSM. However, this licensing practice is considered unable to respond to technological development and the increasing performance and efficiency of mobile networks. It is also considered restricting telecom operators‘ ability to serve more subscribers and to provide

211

subscribers with better and more innovative services. As a consequence, this licensing practice had been revised in many different countries (for example, many of countries in

Europe had revised their licensing system since 2002).

As an alternative, there is a more flexible license structuring, known as technological neutrality licensing, where the spectrum license not specify a particular technology that would be use in the band. Before 2011, the uses of radio bands for mobile communication in Indonesia were still technology specific. The first technology neutral licensing was applied to 2300 MHz that was regulated through the Ministerial Regulation

No. 19/2011. Subsequently, 800MHz and 900 MHz were made technological neutral in 2014.

In relation to the adoption of LTE in 1800 MHz, one of the steps taken by DG SDPPI was to amend the licensing rule for 1800 MHz from the technological specific licensing (specific to

GSM) to technological neutral licensing. This licensing regulation amendment for 1800 MHz was effective in 2015.

Another step to be taken by the DG SDPPI as a preparation of the adoption of

LTE for 1800 MHz was to synchronize or reorganize the current spectrum assignment with operators with the intention to generate more effective LTE service. Before synchronization, four operators that currently have spectrum licenses in 1800 MHz for GSM service occupied separate bands in non-contiguous manner (see Figure 11). The figure shows there are four different operators occupied eight separate pair of blocks in 1800 MHz prior to spectrum reorganization. Those four operators were color coded XL-Axiata (blue), Indosat (yellow),

212

Telkomsel (red), and Hutchison Three (green). After the synchronization process the operators would be expected to occupy the spectrum in the contiguous manner, as shows in bottom part of Figure 10. Through the spectrum synchronization, each operator would have a minimum pair of 10 MHz contiguous blocks - with XL/Axis has 2x22.5 MHz, Telkomsel has

2 x 22.5 MHz), Indosat has 2 x 20 Mhz and Hutchison has 2 x 10 MHz – to provide an optimal LTE service to their subscribers.

Figure 10. The spectrum reorganization of 1800 MHz band as a preparation in adopting LTE1800. The top part of the image shows the spectrum use before reorganization. The lower part of the image shows the synchronized spectrum after the reorganization (source: Ministerial Regulation No. 19/ 2015).

The DG SDPPI, then, issued the regulation for the spectrum synchronization of

1800 MHz in April 2015 with the Ministerial Regulation No. 19/ 2015. As indicated in this regulatory document, the basis that was used as the main reason and considerations of this spectrum synchronization are, among others, “the need to optimize spectrum use to respond

213

to the growing need of mobile service” and “the endeavor to achieve the goal (for mobile broadband provision) set in the Indonesia Broadband Plan” (Ministerial Regulation No. 19/

2015, p. 2). In a sense, these are the rationales that were used to interest and enroll other actors to the spectrum synchronization scheme. Prior to this regulation issuance, DG SDPPI invited all four operators to sit together and allowed them to propose the most effective way for the synchronization process according to the best interest of each operator. After series of meeting, and with mediation from DG SDPPI, the four operators agreed on the method of reorganization.

The process of synchronization was later started on May 2015 and continued to take place until November 2015. The process was started from the eastern part of the country

(Papua and Maluku), and then progressed to mid-western (Kalimantan), and then continued to mid-eastern (Sulawesi and Nusa Tenggara), and then western part (Sumatera, Java, and

Bali), and the synchronization process was finalized in Jakarta and West Java. The sequence of this spectrum reorganization has its own purpose. It was started from the eastern parts of the country because these regions have the least number of mobile users. Hence, there would be time to learn and to anticipate any possible obstacle before conducting synchronization in more crowded areas. The main challenge of this process was for the operators to maintain an uninterrupted service for their subscribers while at the same time changing the radio frequency in providing the service. The technical execution of the proses down to the last detail was elucidated in the Ministerial Regulation No. 19/ 2015. By the end of November

2015, the synchronization 1800 MHz has finalized nationwide without any significant

214

obstacle.

All and all, the synchronization process has been conducted effectively and efficiently. The multi-stakeholder approach taken by DG SDPPI that opens the discussion with the mobile operators before issuing the regulation help to run the synchronization process smoothly and swiftly. This was quite contrary with the DSO process where the broadcasting industry was resistant to the regulatory action taken by DG PPI as the regulator of broadcasting. Commenting on this multi-stakeholder approach taken by DG SDPPI, a

Telkomsel spokesperson from the Regulatory and Law Division expressed his appreciation to

DG SDPPI (Ronny, personal communication, March 27, 2015). He stated that the government (DG SDPPI) did not arbitrarily uses their authority in this synchronization process. He added, DG SDPPI could always argues the synchronization was part of the policy or the rule that need to be obeyed, and government does not have to wait the agreement from the industry. Instead of using that approach, DG SDPPI was prioritizing the joint agreement among operators.

Furthermore, the content of the regulation for spectrum synchronization has accommodated the interests of different of parties. This Telkomsel spokesperson considered the approach used in this regulation especially important to maintain the stability of telecommunication services in Indonesia (Ronny, personal communication, March 27, 2015).

Nevertheless, this synchronization process is just the first step in adapting the LTE nationally in the country. The next step depends on whether the industry (i.e. mobile operators) has the

215

concrete plan in modernizing their radio technology as well as adjusting their business model in adapting the new technology in the face of tough telecommunication market competition.

It seems that the response of the industry in adapting LTE is not as straightforward as it appear in their marketing and promotion, as I will explain in the next section.

From this account of the regulator’s point of view so far, I have presented that the plan for LTE adoption using 1800 MHz was part of the DG SDPPI strategy (as the main regulator of radio spectrum in Indonesia) to further its interest to optimize the use of spectrum and to fulfill the goal of Indonesian Broadband Plan. DG SDPPI had to enroll at least two important actors to be able to enact this strategy, the LTE technology itself and the telecom operators. To enroll LTE technology, DG SDPPI needed to consider the prescriptions stipulated by LTE technical requirement, particularly radio spectrum requirement, which is tied to the role of DG SDPPI as the telecom regulator.

Since the existing spectrum assignment was not ideal for the LTE requirement,

DG SDPPI was using its regulatory authority to enforce mobile operators to comply with the rearrangement and synchronization of spectrum assignment to be able to fulfill the requirement of technical prescription on its chosen radio spectrum. To the point of view of the DG SDPPI, the synchronization of the 1800 MHz was an integrated and inseparable step toward the adoption of LTE nationwide. Hence, DG SDPPI was extending the LTE technical prescription with the regulatory prescription as part of its strategy to achieve spectrum optimization and mobile broadband expansion.

216

The coalescence of engineering vision and regulatory vision that were inscribed in LTE technology in the process of its adoption, I argue, characterize LTE technology adoption as a heterogeneous engineering - to follow the concept from Law (1987). The prescriptions to utilize this technology by mobile operators are not only come from its technical requirements, but also from the regulatory requirement from DG SDPPI. In addition to DG SDPPI and LTE, other components of this heterogeneous engineering also include international treaty of Radio Regulation from ITU, radio spectrum, mobile operators,

World Bank expert, spectrum license, Indonesia Broadband Plan, and the vision to connect population. All these assemblages of diverse elements come together and merge to build the unique LTE system in Indonesia. The utilization of LTE, therefore, is not only a matter of technological application, but also an interrelation diverse elements that are not necessarily technological, which echo the sentiment voiced by Law (1987) when he said, “… technology

[is] a family of methods for associating and channeling other entities and forces, both human and nonhuman” (p. 115). The uniqueness of the heterogeneous engineering composition in

LTE adoptions in Indonesia is inseparable from the specificities of social, political, and economical situation in the country.

For DG SDPPI the reorganization of 1800 MHz spectrum was part of the effort to adopt LTE nationwide. This regulatory agency expected that the finalization of spectrum reorganzation to be followed by provision of LTE service nationwide. The interviews to a number of mobile operators, however, show that this was not necessarily the case. DG

SDPPI only has power to impose telecom companies to comply with the synchronization or

217

reorganizing the spectrum 1800 MHz, as it is still within the authority of the DG SDPPI granted by the State law. As for enrolling telecom operators to expand the LTE network and to provide LTE service nationwide, DG SDPPI did not have any commanding power or any solid instrument to prescribe this action to telecom operators. Whether this spectrum will be further used to provide LTE nationwide and not only in a handful of big cities, it is only depended on a certain calculation of profit and loss from the telecom operators, as will be shown in the next section.

DG SDPPI, therefore, unable to intervene and to provide the LTE service for the population no matter what vision and what goal that it seeks to fulfill in relation to providing access to the population, as it was not part of its domain. This is part of the consequence when the public infrastructure was entrusted in the hand of telecommunication companies through the privatization. What DG SDPPI could do was only to compel and to encourage telecom operators, unless this regulatory agency could come up with some stimulus package that could provide incentive to the telecom sector to enroll them to its vision. What I will show in the next section is the response from the industrial players regarding the LTE adoption. It provides an account of the adoption from the standpoint’s of mobile operators and related actors in the industry. It will also provide explanation regarding the reluctance of the telecom operators to fully enroll to the vision of DG SDPPI to provide LTE service nationwide.

218

4.5. LTE Service for whom?: the response from industry regarding the LTE adoption

Even though telecom operators seemed to be enthusiastic in embracing LTE technology and appear to be eager to provide LTE service to its customers, this enthusiasm might be just for the purpose of marketing campaign. Upon a closer look, there were some voices of pessimisms and even oppositions surfaced among industrial players. Those actors viewed this adoption differently from the DG SDPPI point of view.

One of those pessimistic voices comes from Telkomsel, the incumbent operator that has the largest number mobile subscribers and the largest infrastructure coverage across the country. As mentioned before, Telkomsel had actually launched its 4G/ LTE service at the end of 2014 in several cities, before the process of 1800 MHz reorganization took place.

Telkomsel boasted its experiences in the pilot project of providing 4G/ LTE service in the

APEC Summit in Bali in 2013, and use this experience as a base to launch the actual LTE service, and as a part of its marketing campaign to the customers. In the initial step to launch

LTE service, Telkomsel considered a number of alternatives of spectrum to be used for the service. Ronny (the Telkomsel spokesperson) explained, “…we saw there were opportunities to roll out the service in 800, 900, 1800, and 2100 (MHz) since we have licenses on all those bands. But, we considered that rolling in 2100 (MHz) was not possible, because we have used that band for 3G service. We see the better option was 900 or 1800” (personal communication, March 27, 2015).

Later Telkomsel decided to move ahead and chose 900 MHz for a number of

219

reasons. Ronny said that Telkomsel saw that 900 MHz was appropriate and sufficient to be used for LTE because; firstly, they have enough bandwidth that is required for LTE technology; secondly, the 900 MHz band has had technological neutral licensing so it can be used for LTE deployment; and thirdly, they wanted to launch LTE service as soon as possible to respond to the growing need of customers in big cities, such as Jakarta, Bali, Bandung, and

Surabaya. For this initial launch, Ronny said that Telkomsel have made considerable investment and have prepared up to 121 Node B just in Jakarta alone, and up to 80 Node B in

Bali.

For all those reasons, Telkomsel was initially rather reluctant to the government endorsement of LTE in 1800 MHz band. Another important reason for this reluctance, according to Ronny, is that out of 130 million of their mobile subscribers, 90% of them are still using 2G services (voice and text message communication, and not data transfer communication) and they use 1800 MHz band to serve these 2G customers. Hence, the use of

1800 MHz for LTE has the possibility to disrupt the 2G services to the majority of the

Telkomsel subscribers who are still use mobile service for voice and text message and not for mobile Internet. Telkomsel does not prefer this situation since most of the company’ revenue still comes from this legacy business of voice and text message service and not for mobile broadband service (Ronny, personal communication, March 27, 2015).

Regarding to 1800 MHz band reorganization, Ronny said that this spectrum reorganization was a separate process and was not directly connected to the launching of

220

LTE service. He said that Telkomsel have no objection with the spectrum reorganization initiative conducted by DG SDPPI, since to have a contiguous band is always better than to have non-contiguous one, whether the band will be used for 2G, 3G, or 4G. The contiguous band would generate more efficient use of spectrum because there will be less spectrum used for guard-band to avoid spectrum interference from different operators. However, when it comes to roll out LTE service nationally as the DG SDPPI has in mind with the 1800 MHz band reorganization, Ronny said that the company were still put the plan into consideration, and they still not have any concrete plan to launch LTE service nationwide using 1800 MHz band in the near future.

The obvious reason for this consideration, according to Ronny, there is still not enough market for LTE service in national scale at the present. He said there if there is demand, it is only limited in big cities, such as Jakarta, Bali, Bandung, and Surabaya, and not in other parts of the country. To explain this, Ronny said, “… if there is a question, why

Telkomsel still not launch LTE nationwide when we already have national license for 900

MHz, or why Telkomsel still not turn on the radio technology to provide LTE service in all cities, the answer is we do not want pay unnecessarily investment because to turn the radio module on for LTE service means we have to pay considerable amount of money to the vendors (of radio technology). And if a particular region does not have LTE ecosystem yet, why should we turn the module on? It will be a great disinvestment for us” (Ronny, personal communication, March 27, 2015).

221

Ronny added, the fact that 90% of Telkomsel subscribers are still using mobile devices for voice and text message services (not smartphone device) is a proof there is still a very low demand for LTE. Hence, Telkomsel still does not see the benefit of modernizing their radio technology and make an investment for LTE enabled technology since the existing 3G services is relatively enough to provide mobile broadband in the low demand regions outside the island of Java. Telkomsel spokesperson explained that another Telkomsel consideration for not rolling out LTE service nationwide immediately is that they still do not want to lose their revenue from voice and text message service as the main source of company revenue. They see the promotion of LTE service as just part of marketing purpose but not for the real business. With the “price war” that still take place in the country, and with mobile operators still try to offer the cheapest price possible to lure mobile users to be subscribers, Ronny said that mobile operators in Indonesia still have not found the most profitable business model in rolling out mobile broadband service without still providing voice and text message service at the same time (personal communication, March 27, 2015).

This Telkomsel’s point of view indicates that in order for mobile operators able to further its interest to gain profit through the LTE adoption, on one hand, it must follow the technical prescriptions required by LTE; on the other hand, and it must be able to persuade enough users to use the service. Telkomsel was able to fulfill these two requirements in its launching of LTE service in 900MHz. Telkomsel modernized its radio technology to fulfill

LTE prescription (by building 121 Node B Jakarta, and 80 Node B in Bali), and was able to attract the number of users in several major where it launched its LTE service to generate

222

enough profit as the return for its investment. All seemed to be falling to the right place for

Telkomsel in its adoption for LTE for 900MHz. Hence, DG SDPPI’s move to drive LTE service nationwide by using 1800 MHz, understandably, was responded reluctantly by

Telkomsel. However, for the reorganization of 1800 MHz, Telkomsel did not have much choice but to comply, since DG SDPPI used its regulatory authority to impose this action. As for providing LTE service in districts and municipalities across the country, Telkomsel still have no intention to follow this idea since its cost-benefit calculation does not indicate that

Telkomsel will be able to gain profit from this action. Hence, Telkomsel refuse to be enrolled in the DG SDPPI effort to change its current action to just provide LTE service in a small number of cities.

Another skepticism also comes the XL Axiata, the second largest operator in

Indonesia. Marwan O. Baasir, the Vice President of Regulatory and Government Relation PT

XL Axiata, argued if the government intends to use ITC as an enabler in national development, as also part of its intention in adopting LTE, the government has to deal with this fundamental problem of mobile communication sector (Baasir, personal communication,

March 31, 2015). In the research interview, Baasir made some comments on the structure of mobile telecommunication industry in general. He mentioned that Indonesian mobile industry currently is not an equal playing field for all industrial player (Basir, personal communication, March 31, 2015). Telkomsel status as the state-owned company gives them privilege in expanding their infrastructure to widen their service coverage across the country.

According to Baasir this privilege comes from the fact that the major shareholder in

223

Telkomsel is the State government (with 51% shares), therefore, Telkomsel is only reporting to the government and is able to negotiate the payment of company dividend. This ability to negotiate the amount of dividend to the government, according to Baasir, gives Telkomsel a certain leeway for capital expenditure for building their infrastructure, which led their domination in mobile coverage across the country. Baasir claimed this situation is not creating a competitive market to drive productivity in mobile communication industry. The comment from Baasir shows a different concern from mobile operator regarding the adoption of LTE. Baasir presented what seemed to be a deeper concern that related to the structure of the mobile industry in the country. The perspective that viewed mobile market is not an equal playing field from Baasir indicates their pessimisms (if not opposition) of the plan adopting

LTE to provide the service nationwide.

The claim that the mobile communication industry is not an equal playing field for all industrial players, however, was challenged by the Chairman of the

Telecommunication Committee of Indonesian Chamber of Commerce, Jhonny Swandi Sjam.

Through research interview he stated that even though Telkomsel is part of the state-owned company, they do not receive any privilege or facility in expanding their infrastructure and service coverage. Contrary to the claim that Telkomsel can negotiate their dividend payment,

Sjam claimed that Telkomsel was paying higher dividend than any other operators in

Indonesia. The reason Telkomsel dominates service coverage in Indonesia because they have more capital expenditure to expand their infrastructure compare to any other operators, and this is not because privilege from the government but purely yield through market

224

mechanism (Sjam, personal communication, April 5, 2015).

If other telecom companies want to compete with Telkomsel domination, Sjam asserted, their foreign investors should be committed to invest more capital in expanding their infrastructure building of their company, in order to gain more market or to be able to have head-to-head competition with Telkomsel. This is the way that is necessitated by the market competition, which has been chosen as the mode of governing telecommunication sector in the country. Thus, there are two contradictory perspectives in viewing the composition of market players in telecom sectors in Indonesia. While not directly related to the issue of LTE adoption, these different points of view indicates a different perspective in seeing the governing of telecommunication sector. While the first perspective deemed there is government intervention needed to transform market composition, the second perspective viewed that the market composition should be governed through market competition mechanism.

In relation to drive the LTE use in Indonesia, Sjam argued that one of the important factors is to be able to provide affordable 4G/ LTE enabled device to mobile users in Indonesia in more affordable prices. To be able to do this is by encouraging foreign investment to build the industry in Indonesia. Nowadays, Sjam argued, the investment climate in Indonesia still not vey good to attract foreign investment. The government still has to work on this issue to be able to drive mobile broadband development in the country.

Consistent to his role in the Chamber of Commerce, Sjam commented that the most

225

important concern on LTE adoption effort is to provide affordable devices for the users.

Although this comment is beyond the concern of this research, Sjam’s point of view indicates an attitude of optimism in adopting the LTE in the country for a better mobile broadband service, although he indicates pessimism about how this adoption would be achieve smoothly and timely.

Another industrial actor who voices an opposition about LTE adoption is the

Chairman of Indonesian Telematics Society (MASTEL) and the spokesperson of the organization, Setyanto P. Santosa. MASTEL is a nonprofit organization that aims to unite and to provide advocacy for business players, enthusiasts, and general public who have concern regarding telecommunications industry in Indonesia. This organization is supported by more than sixty telecom companies, more than 400 professionals and academics individual members, and more than twenty business associations in telecommunication industry. This organization is also one of the members and important contributor in conceptualizing and drafting the Indonesia Broadband Plan policy (see chapter 3). Santosa commented on the step taken by the regulator (DG SDPPI) in adopting LTE technology by saying, “Why LTE? Who will use LTE? Is there any survey conducted to the mobile users?

This (technology adoption) is a vendors-driven policy. The vendors came to Director General

(at the MCIT) and said that they want to launch LTE in such a such place…”(Santosa, 2015, personal interview).

He further argued that LTE should be launched if there are at least more that 50%

226

of 3G users in the country. It means that when most of the current 2G subscribers have switched and become 3G subscribers, it would be the best time to move to LTE technology.

He further asserted that LTE is not the answer to the problem in current 3G services. The government needs to recognize and deal with the problem in the current network before move to the next technology adoption. He maintained the argument that LTE is good but it is not the time for Indonesia to adopt since there are still many basic problems to be handled.

He also commented that the current use of LTE is just cosmetic, “It was only a fake marketing, a political marketing without any real (LTE) service” (Santosa, personal communication, February 15, 2015). Santosa’s comment is yet another pessimisms of LTE adoption. The main takeaway from Santosa’s comment is the current small market of LTE led to the question whether investment for LTE would be cost effective.

What we can see from the industrial players’ standpoint in this section are some different opinions and comments from the industrial player regarding the effort of LTE adoption in Indonesia. While each spokesperson emphasizes different issues in their comments, there is a similarity of tone that presented a rather pessimistic attitude to the idea of LTE adoption for the nationwide service provision in current time or in the near future. As business entities that were driven by interest to generate profit, the pessimistic attitude from mobile operators came from business calculation that views the investment for constructing

LTE network to deliver LTE service nationwide is not profitable to the company. The market of LTE at the moment, as some spokespersons asserted, is still very small, and the use of mobile communication is still dominated by voice and message communication and not data

227

communication.

In mobile operators’ standpoint, by providing and maintaining the legacy services of text and voice, they can still retain the primary alternative to generate companies’ revenue.

While the operators see the importance to keep up with the technology and partake in the delivering service with the latest innovations, they are still able to do so by providing service in limited number of locations that proved to have enough demand to generate revenues. On the other hands, from the regulator’s standpoint, the provision of LTE service from the operators, accompanied by the move from the state government to provide the policy to boost the growing of ecosystem of LTE enabled devices, would helps to bring the growth to LTE market. Hence, this contradictory point of view is more or less like which one come first of the chicken-or-the egg causality dilemma.

Hence, while the operators and industrial players subscribed to both LTE technological prescription for modernizing the radio technology and to DG SDPPI regulatory prescription for synchronization of 1800 MHz spectrum, they were disincline to follow the telecom regulators (or DG SDPPI) encouragement to build the LTE infrastructure nationwide. This does not mean that telecom operators would not open to the idea of developing their LTE infrastructure some time in the future, they just unwilling to enroll to somewhat top-down approach suggested by the DG SDPPI and prefer to build the infrastructure based on the ‘natural’ market growth.

228

4.6. Conclusion

In this chapter I investigated the dynamics governing the telecommunication infrastructure, particularly in the context of mobile broadband infrastructure. The infrastructure of mobile broadband in Indonesia plays crucial role in providing Internet service to the population, as the country still relies heavily on this infrastructure due to the limited access of fixed-line infrastructure in many parts of the country. In this case study, I focused on the early arrival of the Long Term Evolution (4G/ LTE) technology in the country, which was welcomed by many rather enthusiastically—by the users, by the mobile operators, and by the State regulator. It was hoped that this new technology would be able to provide a better mobile broadband service, which was seriously needed by a part of the population.

The case of LTE adoption analyzed in this chapter is also a perfect example of the ways in which nonhuman agency contributes to hold society together. As in many cases of the arrival of technological innovations, the moment of early adoption of the technology is the best time to discern the nonhuman contribution, before it become seamlessly integrated into human daily life (or before it became a “black box,” a figure that is frequently used in

ANT research). Following Latour (1994), we can go a long way toward explaining how our society can function in an orderly manner if we turn our attention the contributions of inanimate objects to many aspect of our activities.

Throughout the tracing of networks of actors in this chapter, we saw how

229

assemblages of human and nonhuman actors configured the Indonesian mobile- telecommunication landscape in several different layers. First, the adoption of LTE was a reskilling and upgrading of nonhuman agency to assist it human counterparts more effectively. The engineer who designed LTE inscribed a vision of higher-capacity data transfer and the greater spectral efficiency into this technology. These engineers modified the technological architecture of LTE to be more efficient than its 3G predecessors by combining the two separate parts that handle the calls-text and data transfer in 3G (CS – Circuit Switch and PS - Packet Switch) to become one single domain in LTE (EPC - Evolve Packet Core).

This change in technical architecture enabled LTE to deliver higher bandwidth. Second, the modified technical architecture of LTE, in turn, prescribed a certain radio bandwidth and certain radio equipment requirements to mobile operators, which were necessary for the new technology to be deployed to provide mobile broadband service for subcribers.

Third, the attempt to adopt LTE technology nationwide in Indonesia brought diverse elements together to build a specific LTE system unique to the country. Aside from the LTE technology with its particular prescriptions, there are a number of other actors that have also become the integral parts of LTE system in Indonesia, including the DG SDPPI as the regulatory authority, the radio spectrum with its capacity to facilitate information transportation, the radio spectrum regulations with their role in maintaining order in the mobile broadband sector, the mobile operators with their capability to provide mobile broadband services, some distant actors such as the ITU with its authority to regulate radio spectrum, and 3GPP with its vision inscribed into the LTE technology. All these different

230

actors come together to build a system that is part of a heterogeneous engineering.

Through the tracing of the chain of translations in the process of adoption of this new technology, we can also see the ways in which upgrading and reskilling nonhuman actors has an impact on the human actors and society in general. The reskilling and upgrading of 3G to LTE resulted not only in the enhancement of technological agency, but also changes in spectrum regulations, changes in mobile broadband infrastructure, and changes in users behaviors. It was also envisioned as catalyzing a broader social impact by contributing to economic development and progress by 2019 (by which Indonesia is expected to bring mobile broadband access to 100% of the urban population and 52% of the rural population).

The tracing of the chain of translation of the LTE adoption also showed the plays of power between the State regulatory agency (the DG SDPPI) and the mobile operators and other industrial players. Although the DG SDPPI has the authority to regulate mobile broadband sector in the country, it has no ultimate power to change the action of the industrial players in regard to the adoption of LTE. In a sense, not all actors could be compelled by the DG SDPPI to enroll in its vision of making LTE service available nationwide, as telecommunication operators showed some disinclination in response to the encouragement made by DG SDPPI. The tracing of the actors’ associations in this chapter indicated that, although the authority to regulate the mobile communication industry is in the hands of MCIT, and DG SDPPI is one of its subdivisions, the power to mobilize and to

231

distribute technology and to provide service is in the hands of the telecommunication operators. The limitation of the power of the MCIT as the State agency to provide the service to the population is a direct consequence of the privatization of the telecommunication sector, where the provision of infrastructure and service was entrusted to private entities. Hence, the provision of telecommunication service was conducted based on business calculations, or profit and loss estimates, as opposed to other possible logics of provision.

This is not to suggest that the State government was totally helpless to promote the provision of LTE service nationwide. Although the government has a limited ability to intervene in the market mechanism for supplying services, it still has the power to intervene in the conditions of the market; for example, by creating incentives to telecommunication operators to provide the service in non-economically feasible regions, or by regulating the provision and distribution of LTE-enabled devices to the users to boost the demand of LTE service, or by conducting other regulatory actions. While the government is restricted in terms of its ability to intervene in market mechanisms, it can still intervene to ensure or encourage the free play of the market. Hence, it can be seen through this case that power was distributed across different actors in the telecom market: power in the capacities of the technology itself, power in the hands of the regulatory authority, and power in the hands of the telecommunication operators in their ability to provide (or refuse to provide) LTE services.

232

CHAPTER 5

Universal Service Programs: the Aspiration to Provide Equality of Access in Rural and Underserved Areas

Telecommunications governance observes in earnest the principle of national development with emphasis on the principle of benefit, the principle of fairness and equity, the principle of legal certainty, and the principle of self-reliance, as well as observes the principles of security, partnerships, and ethics. The principle of fairness and equity means that telecommunications governing provides equal opportunities and equal treatment to all those who are eligible and the results shall be enjoyed by the people in a fair and equitable manner. (Explanation of Article 2 of Indonesian Telecommunication Act No. 36/ 1999)

5.1. Introduction

From the outset of this research, the issue of disparity in accessing telecommunication service is one of the main concerns and one of the reasons to conduct this study. The close examination of the history of infrastructure development and the analysis of the current situations in the previous chapters show that the issue of disparity is a complex circumstances that relate to many different factors. As I have argued in Chapter 2, the pattern of disparity in infrastructure building in Indonesia in the present, in one way or anther, is related to the legacy in the colonial era that focusing on Java Island as the center of development. The pattern of early development of the Great Mail Road in Java is the same foundation that was (and is still) used for the development of the newer transportation and

233

communication infrastructure such as railway infrastructure, telegraph, and telephone infrastructure. The evidence that railway infrastructure is almost not exist outside Java is an example of this disparity in infrastructure development. The same issue of disparity also surface in the Internet era. The analysis in Chapter 3 shows that the fixed-line infrastructure is mainly located in western part of Indonesia, and the development of infrastructure in eastern part of the country through the Palapa Ring project are still ongoing. The same also happen in mobile broadband infrastructure, which has been examined in Chapter 4. While the

DG SDPPI the as the regulatory agency has the initiative to adopt LTE to be made available nationwide, there was disinclination to do so coming from mobile communication operators because the move is deemed not economically feasible.

The issue of disparity of access to ICT is not unique to Indonesia. This issue in the international context had been discussed as early as 1982, when ITU Plenipotentiary

Conference held in Nairobi, Kenya, formed the Independent Commission for World-Wide

Telecommunications Development that had objective to identify the barriers that hold back the development of communication infrastructure.34 Chaired by Donald

Maitland, this commission came up with the report that was known as the Maitland Report

(officially titled as The Missing Link). Among other findings, this Commission found that,

…. there is a wide disparity in the extent and quality of service between

industrialized and developing countries, and within developing countries between

34 The Missing Link/ Maitland Report [http://www.itu.int/en/history/Pages/MaitlandReport.aspx] (accessed March 2015)

234

urban and remote areas. This reflects differences in economic capability,

historical experience, and in the priority given to investment in this sector

(Maitland Report, Executive Summary, 1984, p. 5).

This commission, then, proposed a number of recommendations, among others, the importance of the role of international community to take initiative to remedy this problem. However, it was not until more than a decade later that the concept of Universal

Service as a framework to provide telecommunication service to all people was pushed forward through WTO Basic Telecommunication Agreement (which can also be seen as international community endeavor). This was the channel that brought and pushed the application of the Universal Service framework to Indonesia.

This chapter, then, is a close examination of the effort to provide telecommunication service to rural and underserved areas to overcome the disparity of access through the Universal Service programs. It was introduced formally Indonesia through the implementation of the Telecommunication Law 1999. Before delving into the detail of the application of the Universal Service programs, however, this chapter will also trace the history of the Universal Service concept back to the first time when it was introduced. This is to put the Universal Service framework in its context of its origins before examine its specific implementation in Indonesia. This explanation will reveal that the meaning of the concept originally was quite different from its meaning in the current time. It will show that the tension within the Universal Service understanding in its origin is similar with the tension in its application in the contemporary Internet era nowadays. This explanation is also

235

intended to show that the Universal Service framework is part of the development discourse in the international level before it finds its way to the telecommunication sector in Indonesia.

Following this historical tracing, this chapter will contain several sections that pay more attention to the implementation of Universal Service in Indonesia; from the foundation of regulatory framework, the formation of institution to administer the program, the implementation of the program, a number of issues and problems that related to the program, and to finally the plan for redesigning the Universal Service program in the country. The explanations of the regulatory framework, the institution formation, the implementation, and redesigning of the Universal Service program are intended to show that the Universal Service framework contains sets of strategy in governing telecommunication service as a way to govern and to shape the conduct of the population. The ways the

Universal Service framework is frequently connected to the discourse of economic development shows that this framework is expected to assist the population, particularly those who are live in rural and underdeveloped areas, to be able to help themselves to be a more knowledgeable population, to be more productive, and eventually to be able to actively contribute to the economic development (although we will see later that the outcome of the program still far from these expectations).

I argue that the analysis of the Indonesian Universal Service program is an important component to the main theme of this dissertation, since it also bring forward the aspect of politics and the power mechanisms that shape the development of telecommunication infrastructure, particularly the effort to deliver telecommunication service

236

to marginalized communities. Hence, through the analysis of Universal Service program in this chapter, I aim to trace the relevant actors and their associations and relations with each other, and the ways in which the power relations play out in the implementation of the program. Through the tracing of the actors and their activities, I also will explain part of the rationality and motivation behind the program. I am interested to see the ways in which

Universal Service program was used (or fail to be used) to bring equality of telecommunication access to the population.

5.2. The origin of Universal Service: a tug-of-war between intervention and competition in telecommunication market.

The Universal Service framework is generally understood as an intervention policy that have objective to make telecommunication service available to all segments of population at affordable prices, regardless the economic social status and the geographical locations. This framework is based on three fundamental principles: availability, affordability, and accessibility (ITU, GSR Best Practice, 2003). These three principles mean that telecommunication services should be available under non-discriminatory conditions, with reliable quality, in an affordable price, and with usability that could be accessed without constraint regardless mental of physical ability of the users (Feijoo & Milne, 2008).

This intervention policy was born out of political, social, and economic rationales. Politically, Universal Service is believed to be able to lead to a democratic society through the provision of equitable access to telecommunication service to everyone. Socially,

Universal Service is deemed to be able to generate social benefit through network

237

externalities, or the increasing of benefit that derive from the greater use of telecommunication. Economically, Universal Service is believed to be able to bring economic efficiency to overcome the digital divide (Feijoo & Milne, 2008). Part of the underlying assumption of this framework is that telecommunication access would be significantly insufficient and below the socially optimal level without intervention from the government (Muller, 2013).

Although the understanding of the Universal Service as a government policy to promote affordable telecommunication access and service is widely accepted globally nowadays, this understanding is a relatively new, which came about in 1970s (Muller, 2013).

A number of research have done some works in tracing the history of the Universal Service concept back to its origin in early 1900s in the United States (Dordick, 1990; Simon, 2008, and Muller 2013). The concept of Universal Service in its early time was not a program with the intention to bring telephone service to every household with an affordable rate, but it was a way to ensure interconnection among several competing telephone companies. As the history has it, soon after Bell Telephone Company’s patent expired, several local and independent companies were formed and then took part in the telephone service market, which led to the emergence of competition in the market. Each of these telephone companies had different systems and standards without the ability and compatibility to interconnect with each other.

This situation meant telephone subscribers of one system could not make a call to the subscribers of another system, unless they subscribed into two or more telephone systems

238

(known as dual service). This inability to interconnect necessitated a high investment for telephone subscribers since they must have two separate telephones instruments to connect to separate systems. This situation brought barrier to communication among telephone subscribers. Muller (2013) describes this situation with the analogy of incompatibility between IBM and Macintosh in the 1980s and 1990s, but with an important difference. If the

IBM and Macintosh incompatibility is a result of different operating system (or technical incompatibility), incompatibility of telephone system in 1970s was a result of the companies' refusal to deal with each other (Muller, 2013).

Theodore N. Vail, who at that time was the President of AT&T, recognized that universally connected system could overcome the problem of interconnection and at the same time attracted more subscribers to use telephone service (Dordick, 1990). He promoted the doctrine of ‘universal service’ to consolidate various and competing telephone systems into a local monopoly by putting forward the Bell system so that all telephone users could be interconnected (which can be also seen as a way to justify that monopolization with appeals to ethical legitimacy).

Since the concept of Universal Service was introduced for the first time, the discourse that arose in telephone industry was the struggle of two opposing political and ideological principles between dual services vs. universal service (Muller, 2013). On a one hand, there was an argument against fragmentation and against dual services that place the burden of high-cost investment for telephone subscribers. On the other hand, there was an argument that support dual service, and considered it as way to promote innovation through

239

competition. The first argument was eventually prevailed, and Universal sSrvice became the approached that was used as a policy in the U.S. telephone market. This regulated monopoly was seen as the best solution to generate balance between protection to telephone consumers and the expansion of market, since it was able to provide reasonable service rate and extended provision of service.

A research on the history of universal service from Muller (2013) proposes a critical outlook regarding the dominant understanding of the Universal Service concept that emphasis the role of government intervention in expanding the telecommunication network.

He claimed that ‘dual service’ was also contributed to the expansion of telephone network in the United States. Muller argues, “[i]t was true that dual service competition restricted universality by fragmenting telephone users. But, paradoxically, such competition also rewarded the pursuit of universality by the telephone companies themselves in a way that regulation and monopoly have never been able to do” (2013, p. 10). He further argues,

“[d]ual service propelled both systems into a race to wire all parts of the country and to attract as many subscribers as rapidly as possible. Penetration and geographic coverage in the

United States, particularly in rural areas, made the most rapid gains in that period” (Muller,

2013, pp. 10-11). This Muller’s assertion proposes an opposite notion to the contemporary assumption that the intervention of the government through Universal Service would be a main driver to bring accessible and affordable access to the users, particularly in rural and underserved areas. His research emphasizes the argument that competition in dual service time in the United State was the one that brought the expansion of access and brought more

240

telephone penetration.

These historical analyses presented two contradictory views regarding whether

Universal Service that was supported by regulatory intervention and monopoly was the factor that generated expanded network, or whether it was 'dual service’ or a non-interconnected telephone exchange that was generated by pure market competition that brought the expansion of network. Those studies show the root of competing argument regarding the concept of Universal Service in the present day. On one hand, the contemporary understanding of the Universal Service support the argument that market competition and liberalization need to be intervened by the government since it is not sufficient and effective to provide access to all population. On the other hand, the alternative interpretation of

Universal Service that originated from the critical analysis of the history of the concept put more emphasize on the effectiveness of market competition and liberalization in expanding telecommunication service and access to the population.

The recent pervasiveness of digital communication technology with predominant use of broadband service, particularly mobile broadband, adds more complexity to the notion of Universal Service. The question of relevance still persists, as there is still contradicting beliefs about whether Universal Service in the Internet era should be maintained or should be neglected altogether (Feijoo & Milne, 2008). Even for those who still belief the relevance of the Universal Service in digital era, there is a struggle to define the best approach for the

Universal Service programs in regards to broadband service; should it be modified radically in the digital era, and what would be the best scheme for broadband Universal Service

241

(Feijoo & Milne, 2008).

European Union (EU) Commission Communication in 2005, for example, redefined Universal Service in broadband era that mobile communications and broadband

Internet access should not be included in Universal Service scope. The reason for the exclusion of mobile communication was the consideration that mobile market has already quite competitive to be able to provide affordable services. Whereas the reason for the exclusion of broadband Internet access, the document states, “[b]roadband has not yet become necessary for normal participation in society, such that lack of access implies social exclusion” (EC, 2005, p. 9 in Feijoo & Milne, 2008, p. 7). Since then, however, the policy for

Universal Service had been amended with Directive 2009 and there are continuous public consultation regarding the proper scope of the Universal Service.35

At present, the Universal Service framework becomes a practice that inherent in many telecommunication industries around the world (including in Indonesia), albeit with different program designs and different implementations. There are several global events and global consensus that pushed the application of universal service globally, which continuously campaigning the principles of availability, affordability, and accessibility

(which I have explained earlier in this section). Those global consensuses include the WTO

Agreement on Basic Telecommunication Service in 1998 (in which Universal Service was one out of six principles of the regulatory framework for the basic telecommunications

35 This information can be retrieved from the website of European Commission Digital Economy and Society, [https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/universal-servic], and the website is updated as of March 2016.

242

services, see Chapter 2); the United Nation Millennium of Declaration in 2000; the World

Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) that produced two global declarations: Geneva

Declaration in 2003, and Tunisia Declaration in 2005. These global consensuses emphasize the importance of information and telecommunication access and services to support the endeavors to alleviate poverty and create welfare in many countries, although each country members have the flexibility to decide the detail execution of the policy in their individual country (as will be shown in the case of Indonesia later in this chapter).

What can be seen from the tracing of history of the Universal Service framework in this section is that the origin of the concept that was built by composition of many different actors in telecom sector who tried to protect their company interests in the market.

Theodore N. Vail proposed the initial ideas for Universal Service principle to protect AT&T domination over the US telecom market in the early 1900s, while other actors were proposing dual service to maintain the telephone standards. Vail was able to interest and enroll the US federal government to his idea, and in doing so Vail and AT&T was able to mobilize US telephone market regulation to adopt universal service to facilitate interconnection among subscribers.

In the endeavor to promote the concept of Universal Service, this concept gained its meaning as a framework of intervention for providing affordable service and for expanding telecommunication access to the population as oppose to the let the natural competition of the market would eventually expanding the access to the population. This concept of Universal Service as a form of intervention to ensure the provision of telecom

243

service was further dispersed through the promotion of several international forums of organizations, such as WTO, ITU, and WSIS. These organizations, then, became actors that were responsible to extend and disseminate this framework to many countries in the world through international consensuses.

The central tension between full market competitions versus regulated government intervention in expanding access in an affordable rate is reflecting the important question of how much governing need to be applied in the provision of telecommunication service. This tension resembles the question of how much governing is needed to bring the effective outcome, and what is the limit to the governing action (Foucault, 2008). In the eighteen century, the answer of this question was found in liberal market, in a way that market was considered as a site of veridiction to the limitation of government. In the case of

Universal Service, however, the answer to the question, as we have seen, was not led to the mechanism of full market competition in a classical liberal market sense. The answer was not found in the market that was allowed to run with natural mechanism, in which it had to be protected from government intervention.

In other words, provision of affordable service was not surrendered to the invisible hand of market (although some deemed this approach might work, as suggest by

Muller (2013) and other supporter of dual service). Instead, the government-regulated intervention became the mainstream approach in telecommunication policy in addressing the problem of affordability and accessibility in underserved areas. This approach of government vigilance intervention while still tries to maintain market mechanism is one of the

244

characteristics of neoliberal rationality. The government rationality of neoliberalism in this case in evidence in the way government took intervention move at the level of condition of market to bring forward a robust enterprise through the fabric of society.

One of the forms of government intervention that is the mark of neoliberal rationality in Foucault’s account of the history of governmentality is what he called as a

“framework policy” (2008, p. 140). To explain the meaning of framework policy, Foucault took example of the way Germany fully integrated agriculture to be function in market economy (2008). Foucault mentioned that it was not done through intervention of price mechanism or through direct support to the unprofitable agriculture venture; these were considered as a bad intervention (Foucault, 2008). Rather, government intervention was orchestrated through intervening the population (e.g. encouraging migration to reduce the peasant population), intervening the level of agricultural technique, intervening the legal framework of farming, modification of the exploitation of soil and other natural recourses, and, if necessary, intervening the climate (Foucault, 2008). None of these points of government intervention related directly to the market. It was rather interventions on the condition that enable the mechanism of market arise in the agriculture sector.

There is a similarity of this framework policy in agriculture as Foucault explained to the government intervention through Universal Service framework in telecommunication.

Although it seems that the Universal Service is a kind of intervention to the supply of the service in the telecommunication market (by providing additional supply of service), there is another way to look at this intervention. In a bigger context of national or State economy, the

245

provision of telecom service can also be seen as an investment for human capital, in a way that telecom service can provide medium or instrument to provide knowledge and information to the population. Information technology could be used to assist to population to equip themselves to be a productive population. After all, the development of population in neoliberal point of view also means the development of economy. As Foucault also mentioned, there are a number of elements that contribute to the human capital; these elements including genetic characteristic, educational investment, medical care and health investment, and mobility (or ability to move around) (2008). Another important thing that

Foucault also mentioned as part of the factor or contributor to human capital is innovation.

Foucault (2008) asserted,

If there is innovation, that is to say, if we find new things, discover new forms of

productivity, and make technological innovations, this is nothing other than the

income of a certain capital, of human capital, that is to say, of the set of

investments we have made at the level of man himself (p. 231).

Thus, the technological innovation in the form of Internet service or broadband access that is provided through Universal Service framework can also be seen as innovation that part of the investment for human capital.

It is important to emphasis, that the concept of human capital is one of the distinct concept that separate neoliberal rationality and other government rationalities in viewing the contribution or the role of the individual to the society, as Foucault (2008)

246

indicated in his lecture. The concept of human capital separate neoliberalism from classical

Marxism, where human is viewed as a source of labor power that could be sold in certain time to be exchanged with wage. So when workers perform certain works, it would create value and part of it is extorted from the workers (Foucault, 2008). For Foucault, the concept of labor in Marxism is following its criticism to the logic of capital that “reduces labor to labor power and time. It makes it a commodity and reduces it to the effects of value produced” (2008, p. 221). The concept of human capital also different from labor in

Keynesian sense, where labor is counted as a factor of production that is passive, and only have limited to find employment that is available though certain investment (Foucault, 2008).

Neoliberal rationality views the labor from the perspective of the individual point of view. From the point of view of the worker, wage is an income and it is not a price of the commodity. Wage is a return of the capital that has been invested in an individual. Through the possession of skill, education, health, power, and the capacity of mind, each individual has her/ his own capacity to generate future income. Neoliberalism views society as made up of individuals as enterprise units. Hence, in the rationality of neoliberalism, human capital is seen as an element to generate a robust economy at the level of society through individual enterprise. To come back to the technology as an innovation in the case of universal service framework in telecom sector, it can be seen as a way to improve human capital to equip individual enterprise for future income, and in turn, it would be able to generate productive population.

A similar rationality was also found in the concept of Universal Service,

247

particularly in Indonesia,, as the expansion of ICT access is frequently connected with development program to create economic progress and welfare of the population. Several different agencies (as will be shown in the next section) have put a number of programs to bring the telecommunication service to rural and underserved areas, hoping that these services would be used to assist social, economic, political, and cultural activities. However, the efforts to provide Universal Service were tangled in the complexity of regulatory framework, ineffective program designs, ineffective organizational design, and in the problem of the public accountability. Thus, instead of providing telecommunication service that hopefully could assist underserved population in their various activities, Universal

Service program in Indonesia was tainted with corruption cases, suspended program by the parliament, and some other problems that hinder the program to achieved that it is intended to achieve.

The next section, then, will provide an account of the implementation of

Universal Service framework in Indonesia. It will present a close examination of the ways in which the legitimation to the Universal Service framework was produced through various regulatory foundations to be able to interest, enroll, and mobilize other parties. The section will also present an examination of the implementation of a number of programs that were considered to be able to deliver service to the rural and underserved population. Through the account of universal service implementation in Indonesia, I aim to show the way power negotiation plays out in the telecom sector in the country.

248

5.3. The Universal Service in Indonesia: the formation of regulatory framework

The idea that is similar to the Universal Service framework had existed in the telecommunication sector in Indonesia even before the implementation of the

Telecommunication Law 1999, when the provision of service still under the monopoly of PT

Telkom. This Universal Service-alike program was implemented with the intention to make telecommunication service available to a larger segment of the population. Koesmarihati

Sugondo, the spokesperson of the BP3TI (the agency that manage Universal Service fund In

Indonesia) mentioned that under the Telecommunication Act 1989 the responsibility to provide basic telecommunication service to the population, including in rural and underserved areas, fell into the hands of PT Telkom as the state-owned company (although they were allowed to engage in several types of cooperation with private enterprises)

(Sugondo, personal communication, April 30, 2015). The fulfillment of this obligation, however, was managed through corporate cross-subsidies from a more profitable business to the less profitable one. In a sense, the fulfillment of the obligation was part of the internal corporate mechanisms without much public transparency.

The issuance of the Telecommunication Act 1999, which was preceded by the signing of the WTO Agreement of Basic Telecommunication Service (see Chapter 2), changed this arrangement. This new telecommunication law included the specific point of the

Universal Service framework for the provision of access in rural and underdeveloped areas

(see more explanation in Chapter 2). The Article 16 of the Telecommunication Act 1999 specifically mentions the Universal Service is part of the responsibility of all operators in

249

Indonesia (both network operators and service operators). In the early implementation of this law, the obligation to build telecommunication infrastructure under the Universal Service framework is entrusted to the network operators who have licenses to provide local and long- distance telephone connections (penyelenggara Jaringan Tetap Lokal dan Sambungan

Langsung Jarak Jauh,). Operators who do not have licenses for these two services have obligation to contribute financially to Universal Service fund (Explanation of Article 16).

This rule necessitates PT Telkom, as the incumbent operator that have both licenses, to be the main implementer of Universal Service programs (Sugondo, personal communication, April

30, 2015). However, with the arrival of many new private companies in the telecommunication market, PT Telkom voiced its objection for this responsibility, and suggested that other operators should also participate for the provision of services under the

Universal Service framework (Sugondo, personal communication, April 30, 2015).

As the response to PT Telkom’s request, according to Sugondo, around the year of 2004 the Indonesian Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (hereafter BRTI) invited all telecommunication operators to discuss the best alternative for Universal Service framework

(Sugondo, personal communication, April 30, 2015), although she did not mention in detail how many operators that were actually attending the discussion. This forum reached the consensus that all operators would contribute as much as 0.75 percent from their gross revenue per year to the Universal Service Fund (after the adjustment made to the bad debt and interconnection fee). This consensus was further legalized to become a formal law through the Ministerial Decree No. 34/ 2004, which means that any telecommunication

250

operators in the country had to comply to make Universal Service contribution without exception (Sugondo, personal communication, April 30, 2015).

This ministerial decree also affirmed that the Ministry of Transportation (MoT, at the time acting as the regulatory body with the authority over telecommunication sector, which later transferred to MCIT) had the full authority in managing Universal Service fund appropriation to provide telecommunication service in the rural areas. Thus, the changing

Universal Service framework from the company cross-subsidy scheme to the contribution obligation scheme delegated the responsibility to implement the Universal Service program from telecommunication companies to the MoT (and later to the MCIT). This changing framework also gave the authority to the MOT and later the MCIT to design and to determine the type of programs that would be funded using the Universal Service fund. The legitimation of this delegation and the obligation to contribute to the fund through the ministerial decree, is a way to lock the telecommunication operators to commit to the program.

Five years after the issuance of this ministerial decree, there was a revision made to the amount of contribution for the Universal Service fund. Through the Government

Regulation No. 7/ 2009 regarding Type and Tariff on Non Tax Revenue in the (MCIT), operators’ contribution to Universal Service fund was raised to from 0.75 to 1.25 percent from the company’s gross revenue. According to Sugondo, the reason behind the increasing of the Universal Service contribution was the consideration that 0.75 percent was relatively small, because in the long term the funding was envisioned not only to provide

251

telecommunication service to rural areas, but also to be used to expand telecom access to industrial sector as well as to provide funding to support research and development related to telecommunication. Another consideration was that if operators paid 1 percent for

Telecommunication Fee, the payment would go to the government pot that was not necessarily used for the development in telecommunication sector, but also for financing other sectors. Hence, the increase of the Universal Service contribution was considered as a way to make sure that non-tax revenue received from the telecommunication sector would be used exclusively for the telecommunication sector, and at the same time did not create additional burden to the operators (Sugondo, personal communication, April 30, 2015).

This change was actually did not create much difference to the telecommunication operators, because when the operators’ contribution to the Universal

Service fund was 0. 75 percent, they have to pay Telecommunication Fee (Biaya Hak

Penyelenggaraan, BHP) to the State government as much as 1 percent from the gross revenue. With the change of the contribution to 1.25 percent, the BHP to be paid to the State government was lowered to 0.5 percent. So the total payment for Universal Service contribution and Telecommunication Fee (BHP) is still 1.75 percent of company’s gross revenue. This adjustment was seen still in line to the principle of Universal Service in WTO

Agreement Reference Paper that mentions, “[s]uch obligations… are not more burdensome than necessary for the kind of Universal Service defined by the Member” (WTO Reference

Paper, 1996). This amount of Telecommunication Fee and Universal Service contribution still stands until today.

252

A new actor also emerged in the effort to implement Universal Service program, which later became the focal actor in the overall implementation of this program. To govern the fund acquired from the operators’ Universal Service contribution, the MCIT formed a special agent in 2006, named the Agency for Telecommunication and Information

Technology in Rural Areas (Balai Telekomuniasi dan Informatika Pedesaan, BITP). The name was associated with the purpose of the Universal Service funding at the time, to provide telecommunication service to rural areas. When the vision of Universal Service program was expanded to not only to the rural areas in 2009 (but also include urban areas with limited telecommunication services and industrial areas) the name was changed to be the Agency for Financing Management of the Telecommunications and Information

Technology (Balai Penyedia dan Pengelola Pembiayaan Telekomunikasi dan Informatika, hereafter BP3TI), with the headquarter in Jakarta.

The status of the BP3TI in the government bureaucracy is a Public Service

Agency (Badan Layanan Umum, BLU) (as stated in Figure 11 below). It is a semi-corporate agency with a certain degree of autonomy in managing the State non-tax revenue. It can also be seen as a ‘not-for-profit company’ under the MCIT.36 The move of the MCIT to give a certain independency to BP3TI to manage State funding is a way to provide flexibility to

BP3TI to manage the Universal Service fund and the flexibility to form the types of program for telecommunication services provision in rural areas.

36 The determination of this status was regulated in the State Treasury Act No. 1/ 2004 and the Government Regulation on Public Service Agency No. 23/ 2005) (USAid Report, 2013).

253

Figure 11. The office of BP3TI in Jalan Rasuna Said, Jakarta, where the USO program in Indonesia was coordinated. The figure clearly mentions the status of BP3TI as “Badan Layanan Umum” or Public Service Agency, which was entitled to some degree of independency in managing government budget (personal collection, 2015).

In regards to budgeting, the appropriation of the Universal Service fund is a part of the Annual National Budget (APBN – Anggaran Pembiayaan Belanja Negara). In

Indonesian budgeting regulation, this is a consequence of using the Government Regulation as the basis of collecting the public fund (from the telecommunication operators). This regulation necessitates the planning of the funding appropriation to abide the State Treasury

Act No. 1/ 2004, which requires the proposed fund appropriation each year to be submitted to

254

the Ministry of Finance, and then to obtain Parliament Approval. The budget appropriation has also be audited by the Independent Auditor (Badan Pemeriksa Keuangan, BPK) each year. This report from audit activity will be delivered to the MCIT as the parent ministry and will be reviewed by Parliament before it is reported to the public. However, as part of the

BP3TI autonomy as Public Service Agency (BLU), this agency has the autonomy to utilize parts of the Universal Service fund through internal decision-making process in the BP3TI

Advisory Council37, particularly for the remaining unspent fund in a certain fiscal year.

The account of regulatory foundation of Universal Service program in this section shows that this programs in part of strategic endeavor to govern the provision of telecommunication service to the population. Not only the formation of Universal Service schemes, this strategy also contains the formation of institution and regulatory agency as a way to enforce the governing effort. The implementation of the Universal Service framework that has gone through several phases, from the internal cross-subsidy scheme to the obligation to contribute to Universal Service fund scheme shows that the strategy of the service provision also experienced a number of adjustments to finally find the most suitable form. Throughout the development and the changing implementation of this framework along the way, it shows that the proportion of the participation of the State agency (the MCIT and the BP3TI) is getting bigger. In the current scheme, the implementation of the program is

37 The BP3TI Advisory Council consists of the representatives from the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (as the parent ministry), and representative from Professional Experts (USAid Report, 2013).

255

entrusted in the hand of the State agency (MCIT) that has the authority to appropriate the funding as well as to design the Universal Service programs that would be able to deliver telecommunication service to rural areas. This scheme opens more opportunity to the MCIT as the State agency to be involved in the provision of services in the market, particularly in the regions that were considered non-economically feasible regions. The number of regulations and laws were issued to strengthen the legal foundation of the Universal Service program. At the same time these regulations are also the instrument to enroll and to mobilize telecommunication operators to commit to the Universal Service program.

With the regulatory framework of the Universal Service program in place, the implementation of the Universal Service is now having public accountability. At the same time, this regulatory framework also entails a number of measures and restrictions that applies to the appropriation of the fund as well as to BP3TI as the agency to manage the funding. In the next section, I will provide an account of the implementation of the Universal

Service programs. It will contain the explanation of a number of programs that were considered would be able to deliver the telecom services to the rural and underserved areas.

The next section also will presents the ways in which the Universal Service program evolved overtime as a response to the technological changes in telecommunication; from just providing basic telephony service, to Internet service with single computer, to telecenter, mobile telecenter, and finally to the provision of Internet in rural and underdeveloped areas.

256

5.4. The implementation of the Universal Service programs: from basic telephone service to mobile telecenter

The Universal Service programs have gone through several modifications since they were first introduced around 2003-2004. The main program that was implemented in the early USO program was the “Ringing Village” (Desa Berdering), which aimed to provide the basic telephony service in villages across the country to increase teledensity. According to

Ahmad Suryadi (a pseudonym), one of the management staff in BP3TI, in this early phase of the USO program the Ministry of Transportation (MoT) was the agency that has the authority for managing the implementation of the programs, before BP3TI was formed to manage

Universal Service fund (Suryadi, personal communication, March 6, 2015).

In this early phase, MoT provided basic telephony service through the purchase of the necessary telephone equipment and then hand over the equipment’s management to the local village administrators (which also known as capital expenditure). There were around

5,000 villages across the country where the Ringing Village was first implemented. As part of the technological neutrality principle of the Universal Service, the were several different technologies used for the service, including telephone connection using PSTN (public switched telephone network) extension, cellular extension, and satellite extension (Suryadi, personal communication, March 6, 2015).

A number of problems emerged from this approach just within a year of its implementation, as Ahmad Suryadi recounted. The problems mainly related to the unsustainability of the program. First, since the Universal Service fund is part of the State

257

non-tax revenue, the spending of the fund has to be strictly followed the public procurement process that requires an open and competitive bidding with a set of eligibility requirements.

According to Suryadi, the bidding that was conducted by MoT was hoped and expected to attract telecommunication operators. However, this kind of capital expenditure for purchasing assets was more attractive to telecommunication vendors or contractors than to the operators, since these vendors/ contractors could get benefit from the procurement of the equipment. These vendors, however, were less concern with the communication traffic that could sustain the service, and treated the program as one time investment (Suryadi, personal communication, March 6, 2015).

Second, the assets that were purchased through the program were listed as

“government assets” (since those equipment were purchased with funding from the State non-tax revenue), which have to undergo the audit mechanisms conducted by the State

Independent Auditor (Badan Pemeriksa Keuangan, BPK) every financial year. The funding needed for the maintenance of these so-called government assets also requires another separate proposed budget. Add to this problem, there were not many human resources with sufficient skills in local village could do proper maintenance to the equipment, which made maintenance effort much more difficult (Suryadi, personal communication, March 6, 2015).

Another interview with a spokesperson and the staff in BP3TI, Iwan Rahardjo (a pseudonym) reveals that another difficulty came from the fact that the Ringing Village was a program executed by the central government In Jakarta, without good coordination with local governments. The personnel of MoT in Jakarta faced problems in monitoring and in

258

managing the day-to-day activity of the program. Not to mention the massive size of the program that included 5,000 villages (Rahardo, personal communication, February 5, 2015).

The information of this early implementation of the program indicates that MoT treated the Universal Service program as one-time investment. The MoT seemed to expect that once the telephone equipment distributed to 5000 villages, the villagers’ use of the equipment could run independently without much assistance and intervention from the MoT, and the Universal Service program could sustain itself. In reality, however, the program could not run independently without continuous assistance from MoT. It is difficult to make determination the actual source of the unsustainability problems, since there is no report or evaluation of the program available be accessed. It is difficult to discern whether it was caused by a low demand of the telecommunication service in the villages, or whether the villagers were able acquired the telecom access elsewhere without engaging in Universal

Service program, or whether this problem was solely coming from the limitation of skills among villagers, or perhaps other factors. With these many difficulties, the capital expenditure approach was deemed not the best approach for Universal Service program.

Sugondo explained that after BTIP was formed as an agency to specifically manage Universal Service fund (and took over the Universal Service management from

MoT), the first step taken by this agency was to conduct meeting and discussion with operators to talk about to best approach for the Universal Service program that ensure the sustainability of the service to rural areas communities (Sugondo, personal communication,

April 30, 2015). BITP realized that in order to maintain the sustainability of the Universal

259

Service program, telecommunication operators had to be involved in the program implementation since they concerned with communication traffic as the source of service revenue (the communication traffic was seen as the key to maintain the sustainability of the program). A series of discussion between BITP and the operators yielded a mutual understanding that the Universal Service program would be treated as a multi-year service contract.

This approach means that BTIP would ‘buy the services’ from the operators instead of pay them directly for specific investment for equipment procurement. This approach could also be considered as a subsidy to the operators who would win the bidding to implement the program. This contract would not be a one time subsidy, but it would be a

“payment as it goes” from BTIP to the operators (Sugondo, personal communication, April

30, 2015). This approach seems to suit both parties. As USAid report of Universal Service program (2013) describes, on one hand, BTIP does not have to concern with owning and maintaining assets. On the other hand, operators treat this subsidy as a grant that could be used to acquire infrastructure and equipment that would permanently belong to them, which was deemed more suitable in the context of relatively small service delivery activities within a specific local village locations.

Using this ‘buy the service’ approach, BP3TI was able to conduct a number of programs under the Universal Service umbrella. They started with the bidding for the

“Ringing Village” programs to provide service to around 33,000 villages in 2007 (BP3TI document, 2015). It took some time for the bidding process and all required administrations

260

to be finalized, and it was not until 2009 that program finally executed. There were two companies that came forward as the winners of the first bidding process, PT Telkomsel, as seen in Figure 12 (provides basic telephony service to 25,412 villages) and PT Icon+

(provides basic telephony service to 7,506 villages). Data from BP3TI indicates the contract with two companies was started variously between 2009 and 2010 that would last to 2014 until 2016 (BP3TI document, 2015).

261

Figure 12. Basic telephony service under the Ringing Village program. The first image shows that the service was provided by PT Telkomsel as one of the winners of the universal service bidding in the Ringing Village program (BP3TI documentation, 2013)

262

With the rapid expansion of the Internet around the world, the Universal Service program in Indonesia also continued to expand and to shift the focus from basic telephony service provision to also include Internet service provision. In 2008 the plan for the provision of Internet service as part of the Universal Service program was formulated with a program named “Smart Village” (Desa Pintar) that further formalized through the Ministerial Decree

No. 23/ 2008. The implementation of the program was started in 2009 as a pilot project, which only conducted in 100 villages with PT Telkomsel as the sole provider. By 2012, document from BP3TI indicates that the Smart Village program was expanded to the

“Upgrade Smart Village” program. This program was conducted in 1,300 villages. The access was provided by three operators; PT Telkomsel, PT Indonesia Comnet Plus, and PT

Rahajasa Media Internet (BP3TI document, 2015).

In early 2009, the ITU released a report that indicated the status of the digital divide in many countries around the world, known as the ICT Development Index (IDI).

Government agencies, operators, development agencies, researchers, and other interested parties frequently used this index to measure national ICT performance as well as the state of digital divide in a particular country, or to compare one country to another. In the 2009 report, Indonesia was ranked 108 out of 154 countries (MCIT, 2013). The influence of this

ITU report was so strong that it led BP3TI to decide that a new program was needed to alleviate the digital divide in the country. According to the MCIT document, this report was one of the bases for BP3TI to start to design a new Universal Service program, which was then named Sub-district Internet Service Center (Pusat Layanan Internet Kecamatan,

263

hereafter PLIK), which usually refers as telecenter. The PLIK program was an improved version from the previous Smart Village program. While the Smart Village program only provided Internet service though a single computer in the village level, the PLIK program provided Internet service using up to six computers in each sub-district level, (see Figure 13).

There were about 6,000 PLIK or telecenters under the Universal Service program that were provided by at least four different operators. The BP3TI document indicates that the majority of the contracts were started in 2010 and ended in 2015 (BP3TI document, 2015).

Adding to the PLIK program, BP3TI also created Mobile Sub-district Internet

Service Center (Mobile Pusat Layanan Internet Kecamatan, hereafter MPLIK) program that, as the name indicates, the mobile version of PLIK program. Considered as a complementary for PLIK program, BP3TI aimed to provide be 2-3 mobile telecenters that would be placed in the district level, which would be rotated to provide Internet access in sub-district level.

There are around 2000 MPLIK or mobile telecenters distributed across the country provided by at least five different operators. Data from BP3TI indicated that almost all contracts for

MPLIK program were started in 2010 and ended in 2015 and 2016 (BP3TI document, 2015).

264

Figure 13. Sub-district Internet Service Center and Mobile Sub-district Internet Service Center (PLIK and MPLIK) programs in rural areas (BP3TI documentation, 2013)

265

Aside of these four programs to provide basic telephony service and Internet service and to local communities in rural areas, there were a number of other programs under

Universal Service financing to support the provision of Internet access. There are SIMMLIK and SIMNIX, an information systems management and information monitoring of sub- districts Internet service. There are also NIX (Nusantara Internet Exchange) and IIX

(International Internet Exchange), the physical infrastructure through which Internet service providers (ISPs) and Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) exchange Internet traffic between their networks. There was also another program to provide telecenters that specifically placed in the small and medium industrial center. There was a District WIFI network program. And the latest one is named Telfindo Tuntas, a program that aimed to provide telephony connection in underserved frontier areas. Overall, there were twelve different programs conducted under Universal Service framework that disseminated across the country.

The account of the implementations of different types of the Universal Service program in this section shows that the scope of universal service program was adjusted following the development of telecommunication technology, particularly the arrival of

Internet technology. The case in Indonesia shows that it seems the Internet service was embraced readily as part of the Universal Service program and included in the programs such as Smart Village, sub-district telecenter (PLIK), and mobile telecenter (MPLIK). Not only a technological adjustment, the Universal Service program also underwent the financing management adjustment, from the capital expenditure financing to the “buy the service” financing. This indicates that as a governing strategy, the Universal Service framework

266

underwent a number of self-adjustments to find the most effective form of modes of governing.

What was missing in the implementation of these programs was a formal evaluation to measure the effectiveness of the Universal Service programs to serve the population that it suppose to serve, either from the BP3TI or from other independent agencies. There was also no evaluation to see the impact of the telecom service in the rural areas, whether those services were helping their villagers in their economic, social, political, and cultural activities. Most importantly, there has been no evaluation and measurement of whether there is any indication of economic development and poverty reduction, which is part of the main rationale in the provision of ICT technology in rural areas. The absence of such evaluations became the fundamental problem of universal program in Indonesia. As I will explain later in the next section, this absence of formal evaluation became the serious problem for BP3TI, which faced the allegation of ineffectiveness of the Universal Service program implementation from other organizations.

5.5. The Problems in the Universal Service program: service for whom?

In the years when the Universal Service programs were being executed, a number of issues and criticisms surfaced related to different aspects of the programs’ implementation.

The pinnacle of Universal Service problems came about in 2013 when the Parliament, particularly the First Commission (that has the authority to oversee information technology sector and its budgeting aspects), called for partial suspension (moratorium) of a large

267

portion of Universal Service funding.38 According to Ahmad Suryadi, BP3TI spokesperson, the discourse for the suspension of the Universal Service fund was started at the Parliament consultation meeting with the MCIT in March 2013 (Suryadi, personal communication,

March 6, 2015). At the consultation meeting, some members of the First Commission brought forward a number of public complains from their areas of their constituencies that many PLIK and MPLIK programs were not running and operating properly. The First

Commission also brought forward the cases that the sites of PLIK or MPLIK were not in the remote communities that had the actual need of the service. Instead, the telecenters were located in the capital of sub-district areas, which had already been covered by commercial telecom services. The USO program, therefore, was considered to be missing its targets.

The First Commission, then, formed the PLIK and MPLIK Special Commission to further investigate this case, and the report of this Special Commission led to the suspension of USO budget. Around the same time, in 2013, there was also a corruption lawsuit filed to sue the BP3TKI for allegedly committing violations in the provision of

MPLIK program in 2010-2012.39 It started when the Attorney General office initiated the investigation of the inflated budget allegation in the contract with one of the operator (PT

Multidana Rencana Prima, the winner of bidding to provide service in South Sumatera, West

Java, and Banten) in the MPLIK program’s provisions. This lawsuit put the Director of

38 A number of media reports of the case can be seen through these links: Komisi I Minta Program PLIK dan MPLIK di Moratorium, March 3, 2013, [http://www.dpr.go.id/berita/detail/id/5394]; Ini Penyebab Dana USO Tak Optimal, Feb 5, 2014 (http://www.indotelko.com/ kanal?c=id&it= Ini-Penyebab-Dana-USO-Tak- Optimal. 39 Kejagung Periksa Kepala BP3TI, Aug 27, 2013 (http://www.indotelko.com/kanal?c=rm&it= Kejagung- Periksa-Kepala-BP3TI);

268

BP3TKI and the Treasury officer as the corruption suspects.

My interview with BP3TI spokesperson, Sugondo, revealed that a number of indications of problems had emerged in the Universal Service programs implementation prior to the culmination of budget suspension by the Parliament. For one thing, many local governments in district and sub-district level where the programs took place said they were not involved in the implementation of the program, and some were not even aware that there was such a program to provide ICT services in their administrative areas (personal communication, April 30, 2015). When BP3TI received a number of similar complaints, the commissioner of this organization asked for clarifications from the operators regarding their coordination with local governments. Many operators admitted that some of their contractors and sub-contractors indeed did not have a proper coordination with the local government.

One of the reasons for this lack of coordination mentioned by the operators was in many cases coordination with local government took a certain amount of time while they were bound with a particular timeline target in executing the program. This situation led many operators (or their contractors) to avoid a lengthy coordination time with local government. BP3TI tried to alleviate this problem by doing some socialization sessions many districts and sub-districts through town-hall meetings, which Sugondo mentioned she also involved in a number of talks from one town-hall meeting to another (personal communication, April 30, 2015). However, only so much could be done through this type of socialization given the massive size of the Universal Service programs. When there was no formal coordination and clear chain of command from BP3TI to the district and sub-district

269

administrations, the missing link from the central government to the local government would still be a problem in the program.

The second problem - also related to the first one - is the capability of the BP3TI as the main agency in managing the significant amount of Universal Service fund as well as managing many individual project under the umbrella of Universal Service program

(Sugondo, personal communication, April 30, 2015). The position of the BP3TI in the governmental hierarchy currently is at the “Echelon 3”40 - a relatively low-level administration in the MCIT. According to Sugondo, this low-level status of BP3TI in the hierarchy of bureaucracy limited the capability of BP3TI leadership to interact with other organizations, not only with the governmental organizations but also to interact with stakeholders in private and industrial sectors. It hinders BP3TI to engage in higher-level activities as well as collaborations with stakeholders and was also considered limit BP3TI independency in decision-making process.

Elevating BP3TI level of administration is deemed would be able to expand its role in managing Universal Service fund more actively. A number of studies about Universal

Service implementation in Indonesia, such as from USAaid and University of Gajah Mada, proposed a suggestion to transform BP3TI organizational function. The USAid Report, for example, proposes a suggestion to transform BP3TI from one single-sector vehicle into multi-sector vehicle. It means that BP3TI not only managing Universal Service fund for ICT

40 The way that the level of organization and chain of command manage in Indonesia is through a hierarchy named “echelon” (or eselon in Indonesian), from the highest level of Echelon I to a lowest level of Echelon V. The level of these echelons determine the scope of authority and the responsibility of government officers.

270

provisions in rural areas but also expanding it to ICT provision for Education, Health,

Agriculture, and many other sectors. Another recommendation is to transform BP3TI to a

Quasi-Government institution to achieve corporate-like efficient working and faster decision- making (USAid Report, 2013).

The third fundamental problem of USO program managed by BP3TI is the lack of monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of the program. There are no data to indicate whether the projects reach the target communities that they are intended to reach, or whether the service delivery and the usage produced the expected outcomes. There is also no data to indicate the real impacts and changes generated through the USO programs. These questions can only be answered through a consistent monitoring program with specific indications of expected outcome. The USAid Report, for example, suggests that the monitoring should be conducted in every stage of program implementation. As for the impact evaluation, the participation from expert or independent third party would have the possibility to yield credible information about the effectiveness of the program. This data would be essential in improving the outcome and the target achievement of the program.

Both of these procedures of monitoring and evaluation seems not been installed effectively in the current USO programs (USAid Report, 2013).

The spokesperson from the Ministry of National Developmental Planning

(MNDP) Mira Tayyiba (see also Chapter 3), also recounted another set of problems in the current Universal Service programs. She said the main problem lies on the project-oriented approach used in the program, which does not have a clear grand design and a set of

271

calculated target in a particular time frame. She asserted it could be seen from the 12 different programs that have no clear connection to each other. The second problem, according to Tayyibba, was the massive and top-down approach used in the designing of the current Unversal Service programs. In a sense, there was a certain degree of generalization made in assessing the need of ICT service in rural areas that disregard the specifities and uniqueness of situation in each area. She took example of the mobile telecenter or MPLIK program. The single design and specification of the vehicle used in the program showed that the various local terrains and geographical conditions were not counted into consideration prior to the implementation. The vehicle perhaps would be effective in flat terrain with reasonably good road condition in most of rural areas in Java, but not in the mountainous areas with difficult road conditions in many regions outside Java (Tayyiba, personal communication, March 16, 2015).

The third problem was the lengthy funding cycle of the state budget that has to go through several different phases before it could be finalized. The amount of time needed for cycle budget could cause a delay to the project from 1 to 2 years; from the first time a program was proposed until its execution. Tayyiba asserted there were many cases occurred, when the planning of providing telecenter in particular area had been proposed two years before its execution. By the time the program was implemented and the telecenter was built, the commercial service from operators has been available in that particular area (Tayyiba, personal communication, March 16, 2015). In a sense the rapid expansion of telecommunication service was not counted in planning the program, which makes Universal

272

Service programs lose its relevance and frequently considered as missing its target.

It seemed the third problem that was explain by Tayyibba was the case in PLIK in Sub-district (Kecamatan) Sleman, Yogyakarta (a province in Java) where I conducted a site observation as a part of my field research. As I described in the beginning of the introduction of this dissertation, the condition of the Sleman telecenter of PLIK was underutilized, under-maintained, and left in a pitiful state (as shown in Figure 14). Most of the time the telecenter was barely used other than by a bunch of teenagers who wanted to play online games after school or on the weekend. The sub-district itself is hardly be characterized as an underdeveloped area since it is located on one of the main roads with one the busiest traffic areas in Java. When I checked my smartphone, the mobile broadband service was working with relatively good connection and access speed, and it was not difficult to obtain Internet access. If the objective of the existing telecenter or PLIK in the area to provide Internet access to local community for agriculture, health, or education purpose, it seems many of the community members could obtain that service in the comfort of their home with their own mobile devices. Hence, the PLIK seems to lose its intended function and its relevance and only exist as an artifact of the Universal Service program.

273

Figure 14. The sub-district Internet Service Center or telecenter (PLIK) in Sleman, Yogjakarta. The telecenter was underutilized and under-maintained. The users of the telecenter charged Rp.1500 per hour service, which equal to USD 12 cents per hour service (personal collection, 2015).

274

The array of problems in the implementation of universal service policy described in this section shows that the government intervention to provide telecommunication service in rural and underserved areas not necessarily yield the expected result. On the contrary, in many cases, it creates additional problems. The issues of lack of coordination between MCIT in Jakarta and the local government in district and municipality levels and mismanagement of funding that led to the corruption court case can be seen as examples of inept organizational management by BP3TI. However, the more fundamental problems were related to the top-down approach used in the program, the unsynchronized state budged cycle with the timeframe of the program, and the disconnected nature between

Universal Service planning and the expansion of the industry.

All these essential problems could be seen as the indication there is no strong argument to support the claim that Universal Service funding management by government is a better approach that the cross-subsidy approach from the telecom service providers/ companies. A number of weaknesses and limitations in Universal Service implementation were originated on bureaucratic issues and organizational management problems, more so than the challenge to reach and to educate rural population. The treatment of Universal

Service funding as the state non-tax revenue, for example, resulted in a number of restrictions and limitations that necessitated by the State law in using the funding for the purpose of telecommunication provision. The approach and the framework to the program, therefore, need to be restructured in order to deliver the telecom service effectively and on the right target. My interviews with a number of relevant actors indicated that efforts have been made

275

to redesign the universal service program, particularly in the changing leadership in the

BP3TI. There are a number of trajectories of redesigning effort formulated by the MCIT,

MNDP, and BP3TI. The detail of the account in redesigning effort will be explained in the next section.

5.6. Redesigning of Universal Service programs: the future utilization of Universal Service funding

Following a number of problems associated with Universal Service program, including the suspension of Universal Service funding by Parliament and the pending court case that involved the Director of BP3TI and several of senior staff in the organization, the discourses of redesigning USO program surfaced at the end of 2013 and the beginning of

2014. Part of this redesign program is the plan on restructuring the organization of BP3TI as well as finding the new leadership that would be able to manage the renewed organization with a set or renewed programs. As I have mentioned before, several studies and evaluations about the current Indonesian USO program and recommendations regarding best practice in implementing USO were provided by a number of different organizations, including international agencies such as USAid Global Broadband and Innovation Program (GBIP) and

GSM Association (GSMA), and from national consultant, such as PT LAPI ITB, to help

MCIT and BP3TI to think about a better framework for USO program in the future.

It appears, however, that long before the Universal Service funding suspension, there had been a plan to use the Universal Service funds to finance the building of fiber optic backbone infrastructure, the Palapa Ring (see Chapter 3 for Palapa Ring detail). Tayyiba (the

276

MNDP spokesperson) mentioned that since 2010 to 2012, MNDP and MCIT had been trying to find the appropriate financing scheme for the Palapa Ring by using Universal Service fund. According to Tayyiba, there is no straightforward financing scheme available for

Palapa Ring because of the restrictive measure of the State-budget uses in the existing regulation.

On one hand, there is the State-budget regulation for asset and service procurements (regulation through the Presidential Decree No. 54/2010), which allowed

MCIT to invest the Universal Service fund for financing the Palapa Rng project. This scheme, however, would generate “government assets” that need to be maintained and operationalized by the government, in this case MCIT (as in the case of early implementation of the Universal Service program explained in previous section). This scheme is not preferred from the experience in early implementation of the program. On the other hand, there is a regulation for public and private partnership (PPP) for infrastructure provision (regulated through the Presidential Decree No. 66/ 2013) that allows MCIT to cooperate with private entities to operate infrastructure but does not allow investment for capital expenditure.

As the way around to solve the restrictiveness of these two regulations, the

MNDP and the MCIT came up with the scheme to combine these two regulations. Thus,

MCIT would use USO fund to finance the investment of the Palapa Ring construction (the input) under the scheme allowed in the first regulation, and then MCIT would continue this investment with the public-private partnership in operating the infrastructure under the

277

scheme allowed in the second regulation. Unfortunately, by the time this funding scheme was finalized, the Universal Service fund has been suspended by the Parliament. Hence, the plan was halted for a time being.

By end of 2014, when the new presidential administration took office, there was also a change of MCIT leadership (including the Minister of Communication and

Information Technology). The endeavor to re-launch Universal Service program was then started anew. There were a number of reviews conducted to evaluate the use of Universal

Service fund. The new Minister of MCIT made a statement that a number of projects that had been initiated under the leadership of previous minister would be reviewed, evaluated, and if necessary would be revised and then bring those project move forward in accordance to national development planning in ICT sector.

The MCIT spokesperson, Marvel Situmorang, who is also the Head of Universal

Service Obligation Sub-division in MCIT, confirmed the statement from the Minister. He mentioned that the plan to revise the Universal Service program was called a redesign because the basis of the policy was still under the same regulatory framework (the

Telecommunication Act No. 36/ 1999 as well as Government Regulation No. 52 / 2000).

Hence, there was no fundamental change in the program from the stand of the regulatory frameworks (Situmorang, personal communication, April 28, 2015). He further asserted that the redesign of the USO program was still in progress (when the interview took place in

April 2015).

278

One of the main changes in the redesigning program, according to Situmorang, is that the main appropriation of the funding would be repurposed for the financing of the

Palapa Ring project, or the construction of backbone network infrastructure. Marvel

Situmorang mentioned that MCIT, MNDP, and Minister of Finance (MoF) had been conducting series of discussion to find a financial scheme for the project. They came up with at least two alternatives. One scheme is through a one-time upfront investment to build the infrastructure, and after a certain time the infrastructure would be return to the State government (in this case, MCIT). Another scheme is through a continuous financing that would generate operationalization revenue for the State government. These two schemes were generated from two available financing schemes under the current law (as explained by

Tayyiba before). Situmorang further asserted that both of these schemes were still under close review (personal communication, April 28, 2015), and there were still no decision made when the field research for this dissertation concluded.

As for other Universal Service programs outside the Palapa Ring project,

Situmorang stated that MCIT had evaluated some of the obstacles, weaknesses, and criticisms to the previous programs, and had came up with at least four parameters or principles that would be applied in the future Universal Service programs. The first principle is a bottom-up approach. He said that it has been realized that top-down approach, such as in

Ringing Village, Smart Village, PLIK, and MPLIK programs, have fundamental weaknesses in a sense that it generate very small participation of the local government. Without any doubt, the local governments’ role is essential to the effectiveness of the program because

279

they have better knowledge of their region and the population. This bottom-down approach would open the opportunity to the local governments to propose ICT related proposals based to the need of their respective regions to BP3TI to be considered for funding. Hence, the programs would be highly relevant to the specific regions. This approach would also yield less generalization as had been criticized in the previous Universal Service program.

The BP3TI spokesperson, Sugondo, however, raised her concern to this approach. She said to some extent the approach of soliciting the prospective Universal

Service programs from the local government would perpetuate disparity between more developed and less developed region. The more developed a particular region in the ICT sector the more possibility for that region to propose an ICT related programs compare to less develop regions. This would somewhat against the spirit of Universal Service program that aims to provide telecommunication service to overcome the disparities. Thus, there has to be a system in place to anticipate the disparity based on this so-called “bottom-up” approach (Sugondo, personal communication April 30, 2015).

Situmorang further explained, the second principle for future Universal Service program is comprehensiveness, which emphasis a comprehensive consideration of the needs of the population in the regions where the USO program would be implemented. It means that BP3TI has to make comprehensive assessment to determine whether the ICT service is the priority need in the regions, and in what way the ICT would assist the population in the particular region prior to the implementation of the program. This could mean that Universal

280

Service program would include e-literacy program, training, or technical guidance needed for effective use of ICT service and access. Thus, the future USO programs would not only provide infrastructure provision (as in previous programs) but also human resource development programs (Situmorang, personal communication, April 28, 2015).

The third principle is piloting, which closely related to the first principle. This principle means that there will be no uniform program in the national level. All programs would be customized to the ICT needs of each individual region. The fourth principle is synergy, which means to include the participation of all relevant stakeholders in the future

Universal Service programs. This principle also tied to the first one in which the role of local governments will be a precondition of each individual program in every regions. Not only local governments, future Universal Service programs will also include coordination with other stakeholders, such as telecom companies that has operation in a particular area, power company, and most importantly consideration from the potential users of the service

(Situmorang, personal communication, April 28, 2015).

These principles do indeed answer some criticisms and weaknesses in the previous Universal Service programs, but at the same time they also sound idealistic. The merit of these principles can only be proven once those are implemented in the actual program. Thus, how will these principles play out to bring Universal Service programs that provide full benefit to the population in rural and underdeveloped regions are remaining to be seen in the near future. This is also true in the case of the implementation of Palapa Ring

281

project. Whether the Universal Service fund will be used effectively in financing the building of backbone infrastructure as well as in operationalizing it to bring broadband connection nationally by 2019 still remains to be seen in two or three years to come. If the past Universal

Service programs give any indication, MCIT and BP3TI have to be vigilantly anticipating any weakness and loophole in the future program to ensure the program run effectively and achieve the goals to provide ICT facility support Indonesian development.

5.7. Conclusion

This chapter focused on the analysis of the Universal Service programs as an endeavor to bring telecommunication access to rural and underserved areas. Currently, the

Universal Service framework is largely understood as an intervention to expand telecommunication access according to principles of availability, affordability, and accessibility. However, the history of the concept revolved around two competing perspectives: either the provision of service would be expanded through government intervention by a regulated monopoly, or it would be delivered through the mechanism of market competition. These contradictory points of view continue to this day, in debates over whether government intervention in telecommunication sector is necessary to expand the provision of service.

In addition to identifying these two tensions in the Universal Service framework, this chapter also revealed that the program can be seen as a strategy for governing the telecommunication sector with the aim of also governing the conduct of the population. The

282

Universal Service program is frequently connected with national development and national economic growth, indicating that telecommunication service is intended to enable the population to help themselves to be a more productive population. Hence, the principles of availability, affordability, and accessibility brought forward by the Universal Service framework could also be seen as part of the strategy for investment in human capital.

If this view of the Universal Service program as a strategy for investment in human capital, the population is not viewed as workers who sell their labor power as a commodity, as in classical Marxism. Instead, members of the population are viewed as individuals who possess skills, education, health, power, and mental capacities to generate future income. In this view, a skillful and educated population is needed to generate a robust economy at the level of society, but through individual enterprise.

However, the implementation of the Universal Service program in Indonesia was still very far from the vision of equality of access formulated in the framework. It was also very far from functioning as an investment to increase human capital and to generate a productive and skillful population. As this chapter showed, a large part of the Universal

Service program implementation in the country was trapped in the complexity of bureaucracy and inept organizational management. On the one hand, the regulatory measurements applied to the programs provided legal certainty and public accountability, but on the other hand they also imposed a number restrictions and a certain degree of inflexibility in using the funding for telecommunication service provisions.

283

This situation brings forward the question of whether government intervention to expand telecommunication service provision is always the best approach and the most effective method. The circumstances of Universal Service implementation in Indonesia showed that this is not necessarily the case. There were a number of weakness in the institutional design of the BP3TI and in the mechanisms of program implementation that hindered the ability of the intervention to yield a better result. However, this does not mean that government intervention should be dismissed as a means of providing telecommunication service in rural and underserved areas. Perhaps a better approach could be develoepd by reconstructing the programs and increasing public accountability of the government agencies responsible for managing Universal Service projects.

Nevertheless, some attempts to improve the program have been made. Some key changes include a “bottom-up” approach, comprehensive program implementation, attention to the specifics of each region, and a focus on synergy with other relevant institutions; these efforts seem to offer at least partial solutions to the current Universal Service program. While these principle seem responsive to current problems, they also seem quite idealistic. Whether program redesign will be able to achieve the vision of equality of ICT access to the population in Indonesia still remains to be seen.

284

CHAPTER 6

Conclusion: From Hybrid, Heterogeneous Engineering, to the Endeavor for Equality of Telecommunication Services

This study set out to investigate some aspects of the mechanisms of power that played out in the development of telecommunication infrastructure, particularly Internet infrastructure, in Indonesia. I argued that the mechanisms of power can be identified through a close examination of the actions of the relevant actors and the associations that those actors formed in changing, displacing, and translating the actions and the positions of other actors in the course of the effort to build and to develop infrastructure. Power is understood in a performative sense, in the way it is exercised through certain actions to modify other actions.

Throughout the four chapters, this study has identified power mechanisms in the ways a particular actor defines a particular situation according to its own understanding and then persuades or imposes that understanding on other actors, with the goal of displacing and translating those actors (Latour, 2005; Law, 1992, Callon, 1986). This study has extended the analysis of power mechanisms through the identification of some strategies and approaches in governing telecommunication infrastructure across different times and across different regimes of power. To give the direction to the investigation, the study posed a number of research questions: (1) Who are the actors (human and nonhuman) involved in developing

Indonesian telecommunication infrastructure that will deliver Internet access and service to users? (2) How are those actors associated (or building associations) with each other, and what kind of power negotiations play out in those associations? (3) What kind of strategy and

285

mode of governing that was used to govern Indonesian Internet infrastructure as a way to govern population?

To answer those questions, I focused my attention on three specific case studies of the endeavor to build telecommunication infrastructure and the endeavor to provide telecommunication service in rural and underserved areas. To put these three case studies in context, this research also presented a chapter of historical background of the development of telecommunication infrastructure in Indonesia. The historical tracing of infrastructure development showed that present-day infrastructure is a continuation of the actions and associations of networks of actors in the past. These continuities could be seen in the ways the development of the current infrastructure is the following the pattern of infrastructure that were parts of colonial legacy and the way Java island is still the central of infrastructure building. Understanding circumstances in the past would help to better understand the conditions of possibility of the current infrastructure development.

Each chapter provided specific answers to the proposed research question. In

Chapter 2, The Telecommunication Landscape in Indonesia: from the Great Mail Road to

Telecommunication Infrastructures, I traced the history of infrastructure development from the early construction of the Great Mail Road in the colonial era to the market liberalization of telecommunication in the early twenty-first century. I identified the network of actors in each era and their unique associations with one another, which I argued consisted of heterogeneity of physical entities and discursive entities that came together from different directions and different locations to form an assemblage of human and nonhuman actors. In

286

the colonial era, the development of infrastructure was driven by the colonial authority as the focal actor who managed to enroll and to mobilize other actors (local kings/ leaders, colonial population) as well as to create and to produce various governing institutions. There were a number of ways used to translate other actors, including through the military oppression, diplomatic moves, and through colonial bureaucracy. In the post-colonial era, the role as the focal actor was shifting to the national government under the leadership of the presidential administration. These focal actors enrolled and mobilized a number of actors through the use of national or State law and regulations as well as economic bargaining and international diplomacy.

I also mapped the development of telecommunication in each era, from the telegraph infrastructure, the telephone infrastructure, the satellite communication system, the expansion of the fixed telephone network, and the arrival of the cellular communication network. I identified the shift to a more liberalized market of telecommunication sector that took place in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. This shift brought telecommunication sector toward an increasing participation of more and more international actors, which also contributed to shape the development of telecom infrastructure in

Indonesia. These actors participated through foreign investment in infrastructure construction, joint venture enterprises, and stock market investment. The pinnacle of international actors’ influence was in the power of international organizations, such as the

WTO and IMF, through the mechanisms of multi-national agreement and reform package for economic recovery. These international actors have even stronger influence not only to shape

287

telecommunication market, but also to shape national telecommunication law and the strategy of governing of the telecommunication sector.

In regards to the analysis of the governing actions in the telecommunication sector, I have argued that there were important shifts in rationalities in the course of infrastructure development across different historical eras. The analysis revealed that infrastructure development could not be separated from the political constellation in the broader state and international contexts. In the colonial era, the actions of governing infrastructure were mainly for military purposes, to protect sovereignty over the territory, and for the extraction of natural resources to contribute to the economy of the colonial power. In the post-colonial era there was a shift in the governing actions from the intention of protecting of state integrity and security to the emphasis on economic progress, development, and the welfare of the population. In the logic of State protectionism, the telecommunication infrastructure (or telecommunication sector as a whole) was maintained in the hand of the

State authority.

The changing logics of governing the telecommunication sector were also apparent at the moment when the question regarding the mode of governing that was effective to bring growth to the sector and infrastructure emerged. This question came forward when the existing mode of governing telecommunication that applied the monopoly by state-owned companies could not generate the increasing of teledensity and access to the population. While Foucault’s analysis showed that the answer to the similar question of the limit of government (or the question how much governing is most effective, or that yield a

288

maximum result) brought to classical liberalism rationality, where the answer was sought through the veridiction of market or through the naturalness of the market mechanism, the empirical case in Indonesia indicated the question was answered through the deregulation of telecommunication market—by opening market to more private enterprises participation while still at the same time still maintain the State intervention in the condition of market. I have argued that this mode of governing indicated the operation of the neoliberal government rationality was used in Indonesian telecommunication sector.

Through the analysis of the history of telecommunication infrastructure development since colonial era in this chapter, I also proposed the argument that infrastructure was functioned as an apparatus of governing the territory and governing the population. The case of the building of the Great Mail Road, for example, showed clearly the ways in which this road network was used as a part of military strategy in protecting and perpetuating the sovereignty of Dutch colonial authority over the island of Java territory against the British naval force. The process of building this road network also positioned a part of population in Java colony as the worker that could be used as to produce forced-labor in road construction. Furthermore, the construction of this road infrastructure also produced a new understanding of city orientation and management as well as new knowledge in the positioning of the center of economic activities. Hence, the Great Mail Road as the early road infrastructure in the Dutch Indies colony was functioned as governing apparatus that defined the relation of power, produced subjectivity of forced-labor among population of the colony,

289

and produced knowledge of managing city/ town orientation. The similar pattern also found in the subsequent infrastructure building, such as telegraph and telephone infrastructure.

In Chapter 3, The Agency of Palapa Ring as a Hybrid: the Fusion of Immaterial

Discourse with the Affordances of Technical Object, I focused my attention on the Palapa

Ring project as the major fiber-optic backbone infrastructure for broadband transportation. I have argued that Palapa Ring was perceived to have the agency to contribute in the endeavor to bring economic development and progress, to create welfare of the population, and to increase national competitiveness in international level, as indicated in the Indonesian

Broadband Plan. I also have argued that the (perceived) agency of the Palapa Ring not only from its capacity as a fiber-optic backbone infrastructure, but also from a number of discourses that embedded in the word “palapa” through the history of Indonesia as a nation.

Hence, I argued that the Palapa Ring can be seen as a hybrid, or quasi-object, or quasi- subject (Latour, 1993), an entity that constitutes the blend of social elements and technical elements. To support this argument, I traced a number of discourses that were inscribed in the word ‘palapa’ by a number of actors from the colonial era to the post-colonial early independence, to the early economic development in 1980s, and to the broadband era in the globally connected, digitized world. The discourses embedded in the Palapa Ring ranged from national identity, unity, and security to development, progress, and competitiveness.

Through the tracing of these different discourses, I identified the heterogenous actors that had contributed, and continue to contribute to, the agency of Palapa Ring as a hybrid.

290

In addition, through the tracing of the chain of translations and the tracing of relevant actors in the building of the Palapa Ring, I found that the Palapa Ring has been gone through mutations and multiplications of identity in the hands of different actors. I showed how the idea of building an infrastructural backbone mutated from the Archipelagic

Superhighway in the era of President Suharto’s administration to the Palapa Ring project in the reform era under President Yudhoyono. This backbone infrastructure has also gone through multiple identities in the hands of PT Telkom, which has been an important actors in building the infrastructure, and in the hands of the MCIT as the main regulator of telecommunication sector. While PT Telkom saw this backbone infrastructure as the Big

Pipe Nusantrara Superhighway, MCIT still saw it as the Palapa Ring, the main backbone infrastructure of the country. Nevertheless, the Palapa Ring is not a finished project; it is still an ongoing effort right to this moment. Hence, the future of the Palapa Ring still remains to be seen—whether it would be able to accomplish the vision of bringing economic development and progress, fostering the welfare of the population, and increasing national competitiveness in the international arena.

In Chapter 4, The Adoption of 4G/ LTE Technology: the Action of

Heterogeneous Engineers in the Adoption of Technological Innovation, I focused my attention on the early adoption of LTE mobile broadband technology in Indonesia. Through the close examination of the effort to transfer this innovation to Indonesia, I argued that LTE adoption was an instance of the upgrading and reskilling of nonhuman actors in assisting the activities of their human counterparts. This was one of the consequences of a new

291

distribution of competence between humans and nonhumans in our social world. I also argued that the attempt to upgrade and reskill nonhuman actors not only enhanced the capacity of the technical object, but also transformed the broader non-technical aspects, such as transforming the actions of the regulatory agency in spectrum management, transforming the actions of telecommunication operators in providing mobile communication service, and transforming the actions of users in using the mobile service. I also argued that in the adoption of LTE technology in Indonesia, the prescriptions of the technology were extended by the prescriptions of spectrum regulation, so that the telecommunication operators could deploy the technology to provide service to the mobile users. Hence, the adoption of LTE was an instance of heterogeneous engineering in the development of the mobile communication infrastructure.

Through the analysis of the chain of translation in the early adoption of LTE technology in Indonesia, I found there was negotiation of power in the attempt to make LTE service available nationwide. While DG SDPPI as the regulatory agency of mobile broadband aimed to use the momentum of LTE arrival to also expand the mobile broadband service by making the LTE service available nationwide, there was the disinclination came from the mobile operators and the industrial players based on their calculations of company calculation profit and loss. Even though telecom operators were willing to subscribe to the technical prescriptions of LTE technology and the regulatory prescriptions of spectrum synchronization (or reorganization), they were disinclined to be enrolled and to be mobilized to provide the LTE service nationwide. I argued that this was an instance of the plays of

292

power in the development of infrastructure, where the industrial actors may refuse to be enrolled by the authority of the regulatory agency because they have the power to mobilize

(or to refuse to mobilize) the necessary technology to provide service to the users. This is the power that the State government (or its regulatory agency) does not have as a consequence of privatization in telecommunication sector. The State government no longer has power to be a player in the sector, but only as regulator to govern the rules of play.

Through the examination of LTE early adoption, I also argued that although there is a general technical prescription of LTE inscribed by its designers and its engineers at

3GPP, the adoption of this technology depended on the specificities of the political, social, and economic situation in which the technology was going to be adopted. In the case of

Indonesia, the adoption of LTE encountered a number of specificities that made the LTE adoption is unique compare to other countries. These specifities including the rather disorganized radio spectrum allocations, the disparities of the LTE market across different regions of the country, a situation of spectrum crisis, and a specific governmental vision of expanding mobile broadband to the urban and rural population by 2019.

In the Chapter 5, Universal Service Obligation: the Aspiration to Provide Equality of Access in Rural and Underserved Areas, I focused my attention on the endeavor to bring telecommunication access to rural and underserved areas through the Universal Service program. Through the tracing of history of the Universal Service concept, I identified a tension between two contradictory perspectives surround the universal service framework: a perspective that favors market competition as a mechanism to expand the telecommunication

293

sector, and a perspective that supports governmental intervention in the market to expand the telecom sector. The Universal Service framework in Indonesia favors the second perspective and can be seen as a form of intervention to ensure the availability, affordability, and accessibility of telecommunication service to all population. I have argued the Universal

Service framework was driven by the governmental rationality of neoliberalism, where access to ICT was seen as an investment to increase human capital. Through the provision of equal access to ICT in rural and underserved population, it was hoped that the rural and underserved population would take the technology into their hands to enhance their skills and equip themselves to be individual-unit enterprises contributing to a robust economy at the level of society.

My investigation of the Universal Service implementation in Indonesia, however, showed a number of impediments in achieving the goals of the program. These impediments came not only from inept organizational management in handling the program, but more fundamentally from the regulatory frameworks and regulatory conditions for using the funding to finance the Universal Service programs. These impediments included the top- down approach used in the program, the lack of synchronization between the State budget cycle and the timeframe of the program, and the disconnections between the Universal

Service program planning and the expansion of the industry. Based on my analysis of the results of Universal Service program implementation in Indonesia, I argued that the regulatory framework in appropriating the Universal Service funding as well as the management of the program showed that the State intervention was not effective in providing

294

equal access to ICT to the population. The evidences in the field suggest there was no support for the argument that the intervention of the State government would help in expanding the access of ICT to rural and underserved areas. Although attempts have been made to redesign the Indonesian Universal Service program, the results of this redesign are not yet clear; it remains to be seen whether the new approach will be able to deliver the expected results.

From the outset, this dissertation was intended to contribute to academic conversations in Communication Studies, particularly in conversations that focus on the study of communication technology. This study also intended to contribute to academic study of the Internet and digital media in the context of a specific country, Indonesia. In conclusion, I summarize some of the contributions made by this study within these two academic forums, in terms of theoretical, methodological, and historical analysis.

First, by focusing on the materiality of communication technology and various policies in governing technology, this study broadens the definition of communication beyond the content and meaning of messages, adding insights to the corpus of research in the academic tradition known as the “materiality turn” (Packer & Wiley, 2012). In this perspective, communication is understood not only as a transmission of messages between two communicators but as an assemblage of diverse elements such infrastructure, space, technology, body, and culture within a physical and corporeal landscape (Packer & Wiley,

2012). Furthermore, this study builds on the understanding of communication as a set of

295

practices that produce and maintain society as an ordered and meaningful cultural world that can serve as a control and container of human actions (Carey, 1989; Mattelart, 1996).

The cases presented in this research illustrate this approach. The construction of early road infrastructure, the building of a satellite communication system, the construction of a fiber-optic cable infrastructure, the adoption of LTE innovation, and the mobile broadband market can all be seen as developments that not only enhance the transfer of information between one person and another, but function as sites of power negotiations or struggles over the production of order in society. The early Great Mail Road construction, for example, was a way to maintain Dutch Indies colonial security in relation to another colonial rival. The Palapa Satellite communication system was intended as a way to unite the

Indonesian archipelago and to educate the population to be a well-informed population regarding national issues and social matters. And the adoption of the LTE innovation was envisioned as a way to make the population into active contributors to national economic development. I argue that all these telecommunication infrastructure projects were envisioned as having a broader role, beyond their functions as a communication channel or conduit. Focusing on the material characteristics and the affordances of each infrastructure project, this research helps illuminate the rationale behind infrastructure building as a form of communication practices that produce and maintain society as an ordered and meaningful cultural world.

Second, by expanding the analysis of the Internet and digital media to include an examination of the material construction of technological infrastructure, as well as the social,

296

political, and economic dynamics that shaped construction efforts, it can be clearly seen that infrastructure is already political before it is used for political actions and activisms or other political purposes. If we focus solely on the Internet as a tool for circulating digital media content, or on its affordances as a support for political actions or democratization, we run the risk of neglecting disparities of access of the end-user to the Internet and digital media in the first place. As this study has shown, that disparity is rooted deep in the history of a nation, in the formation of policy frameworks, and in the political choices made by State leaders. In order to understand the political role of the Internet and digital media, we need to examine the material constructions, the policy frameworks, and the larger national and international political contexts as presented in this research.

Third, this dissertation has analyzed the politics of infrastructure through the lens of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and its focus on the agency of non-human actors. By paying attention to nonhuman agency in the construction of infrastructure (alongside human agency), we see that power is not only in the hands of human actors; it is also located in the capacities and affordances of nonhuman actors, which can determine the course of actions and shape social reality. Following Latour (1992), I argue that order is maintained in society not only through the actions of humans, but also through the durability of the various nonhuman entities that hold society together. This study clearly showed the ways in which telecommunication technology also shaped the economy, politics, and the society as a whole.

This was evident in the ways telegraph infrastructure helped the economy of the Dutch colonial regime, in connecting Batavia, tin mines in Muntok (Bangka), and the hub of the

297

international network of telegraphy in Singapore to support the integration of colonial economy to global economy. It was also seen in the way the arrival of the LTE technology altered spectrum regulations, the interactions between mobile operators and the regulatory agency, and the behavior of the end-users in their use of mobile broadband. The case studies presented in this research help illustrate how technologies, as nonhuman actors, shape society through their capabilities and affordances.

Fourth, I combined two analytical frameworks, Actor-Network Theory and

Foucaldian governmentality, to examine the power mechanisms present in infrastructure building. This combination contributes to the analysis of power by locating the relevant actors and their actions at the microphysical scale—such as specific institutions, organizations, or even specific people—before moving to the macrophysical scale of the

State, the international actors, national law, etc. ANT provided a method for following the actors and their various associations in a flattened topographical connections, while the

Foucaldian governmentaltity framework enabled a focus on the actors at the macro level, such as the level of the State. The combination of these two frameworks allows the analyst to focus on the continuities, and not to make a conceptual leap between the micro and macro.

The combination of these two frameworks can also help in interpreting the associations among actors and the chain of translations in the telecommunication sector in terms the governing of telecommunication—that is, the use of telecommunication as a way to govern populations and to govern territory. In other words, the descriptive nature of ANT analysis (explicating the actions and associations of heterogeneous actors) can be sharpened

298

by interpreting these various actions and associations as mechanisms of power and as governing actions intended to govern or to shape the thoughts, behaviors, and the conducts of the populations. In this way, a Foucaldian analytical framework adds more substance to the

ANT descriptions of the process of translation, allowing us to better understand the mechanisms of power in governing telecommunication infrastructure.

Fifth, this research contributes to the academic conversation in its approach to combining a number of methods of data gathering, following the actors and their associations in the course of infrastructure building as close as possible. I followed the material connections as well as the narratives of technology in multiple sites and across fragmented spaces, not limiting the analysis to static and bounded geographical spaces. In addition to site observations and in-depth interviews in multiple sites, I also closely examined various types of texts and documents, including policy papers, project reports, historical studies, academic journals, company websites, and mass media reports (online and offline). By following both material objects and the narratives surrounding technology, I was able to discover the pathways of connections and associations of different elements of power present in the processes of infrastructure building. In addition to following actors and their actions in the present time, I also drew important connections from a number of historical events. The focus on the historical connections in this research was intended to contribute to a better understanding of the development of telecommunication technology in Indonesia and to stimulate critical conversation about the study of technological infrastructure among scholars and the general public in Indonesia.

299

This study is also relevant for academic conversations that focus on the role of the technology in society, commonly known as STS (science, technology, and society). One of the streams of study in STS is the social constructivist perspective, which views technology as having an important role in shaping the society. The social constructivist perspective influences much of the argument in my research—for example the ways in which the agency of nonhuman actors contribute to maintaining the durability of social structures.

Hence, this study contributes to the corpus of research in this social constructivist stream of

STS.

Much work could be done to further the research conducted in this dissertation. I have offered an initial analysis of the power mechanisms operating in construction of the

Palapa Ring, the adoption of LTE in the mobile communication market, and the provision telecom service through the universal service program, but these are only preliminary studies of these three cases, since all of these technology development projects are ongoing. Hence, research can be done on the future development of these projects, and from different approaches and different points of view. For example, future research could examine the achievement of the goals of the Indonesian Broadband Plan by 2019. And research will be needed on the ways in which the negotiations among actors change once the fiber-optic backbone is finalized in the eastern part of Indonesia.

Furthermore, this dissertation focused deliberately on the actions of the regulatory agencies and the industrial players in the course of the development of infrastructure. More research can be done to capture perspectives and voices of users, not

300

only in their uses of technology but also in their public participation to shape the trajectory and the conditions of infrastructure development in the future. Moreover, while the present research focused on infrastructure development in the specific social, political, and economic situation of Indonesia, perhaps comparison studies of infrastructure development and telecommunication policy in other developing countries will provide a better understanding of what is distinctive in those situations and what is common across different contexts.

Comparative studies would make it possible to generate more general claims and theoretical abstractions regarding the mechanisms of power that operate in the development of telecommunication infrastructure.

This study is not without limitations. Methodologically, the difficulties in gaining access to observe field sites and conduct in-depth interviews with relevant actors generated somewhat imbalanced information and hampered the ability of this study to get a comprehensive point of views from the diverse actors. While I was able to get access to several regulatory agencies, access to the industrial players, particularly to the private telecommunication companies, proved to be more difficult to obtain. Theoretically, the focus on the regulatory agencies and the industrial players also means that this research has examined only one side of the coin. As I have suggested, future research should extend the work done in this dissertation to capture the perspectives of users and their role in the effort to develop Internet infrastructure.

Despite of these limitations, this study has been able to identify the relevant actors in three significant cases of telecommunication infrastructure development in

301

Indonesia. This study has also been able to make some important connections between historical events and the current situations to reveal the conditions of possibility of infrastructure development. It is my hope that the information offered in this research can be used to better understand future phenomena of telecommunication infrastructure development in Indonesia.

302

REFERENCES

Agamben, G. (2009). “What is an Apparatus?” and Other Essays (D. Kishik, S. Pedatella Trans.). Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

Akrich, M. (1992). The De-Scription of Technical Object. In W. E. Bijker, & J. Law (Eds.), Shaping technology/building society: Studies in sociotechnical change. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.

Akrich, M., & Latour, B. (1992). A Summary of a Convenient Vocabulary for the Semiotics of Human Non-human Assembly. In W. E. Bijker, & J. Law (Eds.), Shaping technology/ building society. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

Amir, S. (2012). The Technological State in Indonesia: the Co-constitution of High Technology and Authoritarian Politics. Routledge.

Aswicahyono, H. and D. Friawan (2008), ‘Infrastructure Development in Indonesia’, in Kumar, N. (ed.), International Infrastructure Development in East Asia – Towards Balanced Regional Development and Integration, ERIA Research Project Report 2007- 2,

Ave, J.B. (1989) ‘Indonesia’, ‘Insulinde’ and ‘Nusantara’; Dotting the i’s and crossing the t’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 145(2/3), 220-234

Blouin, C (2000) The WTO Agreement on Basic Telecommunications: a reevaluation. Telecommunications Policy, 24, pp.135-142

Barker, Joshua (2002) Telephony at the Limits of State Control: Discourse Network in Indonesia, Local Culture and the New Asia: The Culture and Capitalism in Southeast Asia. C.J.W.L. Wee (ed) Singapore: Institute of Asian Studies, pp. 158-183

Barker, J., (2005) Engineers and Political Dreams Indonesia in the Satellite Age, Current Anthropology, 46(5), 703-727

Bennett, T. (2007). Making Culture, Changing Society: The Perspective of ‘Culture Studies. Cultural Studies, 21(4): 610-629

303

Bosch, F (1956) C.C. Berg and Ancient Javanese History, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 112(1), 1024

Budhijanto, D (2011)The Indonesia Telecommunications Regulations: Privatization and Open Competition. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1809655

Burrell, J. (2009). The field site as a network: A strategy for locating ethnographic research. Field Methods, 21(2), 181-199.

Callon, M. (1986). Some Elements of Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St. Brieuc Bay. In J. Law (Ed.), Power, action, and belief: A new sociology of knowledge. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul

Callon, M. & Law, J. (1982). On Interests and Their Transformation: Enrolment and Counter-Enrolment. Social Studies of Science, 12(4), 615-625.

Carey, J.W., (1989). Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society. Boston: Unwin Hyman. Originally published 1975.

Cox, C., (2014). An introduction to LTE: LTE, LTE-advanced, SAE, and 4G mobile communications, Second Edition. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons.

Dean, M. (1996). Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society. London: Sage deLaet, M. K, & Mol, A. (2000). The Zimbabwe Bush Pump: Mechanics of a Fluid Technology. Social Studies of Science, 30(2), 225-263.

Ditjen SDPPI (2013) Data Statistik Direktorat Jenderal Sumber Daya dan Perangkat Pos dan Informatika Semester 1 Tahun 2013, Kementerian Komunikasi dan Informasi: Jakarta

Dordick, H.S. (1990) “The origins of universal service: history as a determinant of telecommunications policy”, Telecommunication Policy, 14(3), pp. 223-231

Drake, W.J. & Noam, E.M (1997) The WTO deal on basic telecommunications Big bang or little whimper? Telecommunications Policy, 21 (9), pp. pp. 799-818

Finger,J.M and Nogués, J.J (2002) The Unbalanced Uruguay Round Outcome: The New

304

Areas in Future WTO Negotiations, The World Economy, (25) 3, 321-340

Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books.

Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972– 1977, trans. C. Gordon. New York: Pantheon.

Foucault, M. (1982). "The Subject and Power" in Dreyfus, H.L., & Rabinow, P. (eds.) Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. 2nd edition. Chicago: U of Chicago P.

Foucault, M. 2002. The Archaeology of Knowledge. London: Routledge.

Foucault, M. 2003. The Birth of the Clinic. London: Routledge.

Foucault, M. (2009). Security, Territory, and Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977-78. New York: Palgrave Macmillan

Fredebeul-Krein, M & Freytag, A (1997) Telecommunications and WTO discipline: An assessment of the WTO agreement on telecommunication services. Telecommunications Policy, 21(6), pp. 477-491

Greene, R.W. (2012) Lessons From the YMCA: the Material Rhetoric of Criticism, Rhetorical Interpretation, and Pastoral power, in Packer, J., & Wiley, S.B.C (eds.) Communication Matters: Materialist Approaches to Media, Mobility, and Networks (pp. 219-230), New York: Routledge

Gordon, C. (1991). Governmental Rationality: An Introduction. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon, & P. Miller (Eds.), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality (pp.1-52). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Hay, J. (2012). The Birth of the “Neoliberal” City and its Media. In J. Packer, & S. B. C. Wiley (Eds.), Communication Matters: Materialist Approaches to Media, Mobility, and Networks. London; New York: Routledge.

Henderson, A., Gentle, I., Ball, E., (2005) WTO principles and telecommunications in

305

developing nations: challenges and consequences of accession, Telecommunications Policy, 29, pp. 205–221

Hill, D.T., & Sen, K (2005) The Internet in Indonesia’s New Democracy. London: Routlegde

Hilbert, M. (2012) Towards a Conceptual Framework for ICT for Development: Lessons Learned from the Latin American “Cube Framework”, Information Technologies & International Development, 8(4, Winter; Special issue: ICT4D in Latin America), pp. 243–259

International Telecommunication Union (2003) Universal Access Regulatory Best Practice Guidelines

J. Michael Goodson Law Library Research Guide (2014) GATT/ WTO. Available at: https://law.duke.edu/sites/default/files/lib/gatt.pdf

Ladcomm Corporation (2013) Universal Service Fund Study Conducted on Behalf of the GSM Association

Latour, B. (1987). Science in Action: How to Follow Scientist and Engineers through Society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press

Latour, B. (1990). Drawing Things Together. In M. Lynch and S. Woolgar. (Eds.), Representation in scientific practice Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Latour, B. (1992). Where are the missing masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifact. In W. E. Bijker, & J. Law (Eds.), Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Latour, B (1993), We Have Never Been Modern. Translated by Catherine Porter. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press

Latour, B. (1992). Where are the missing masses? the sociology of a few mundane artifact. In W. E. Bijker, & J. Law (Eds.), Shaping technology/building society: Studies in sociotechnical change. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

306

Latour, B. (1999). Technology is Society Made Durable. In Law, J. (Ed). A Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power, Technology and Domination. London: Routledge

Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.

Law, J. (1987) Technology and Heterogeneous Engineering: The Case of Portuguese in Bjiker, W.E., Hughes, T. P, and Pinch, T.J (Eds.) The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology. Cambridge: MIT Press

Law, J. (1992). Notes on the theory of the actor network - ordering, strategy, and heterogeneity. Systems Practice, 5(4), 379-393.

Lee, R.C., & Findlay, C. (2005) Telecommunications Reform in Indonesia: Achievements and Challenges, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 41(3), pp. 341-365

Lemstra, W., Hayes, V., & Groenewegen, J. (2010) The Innovation Journey of Wi-Fi: The Road to Global Success, Edinburg: Cambridge University Press

Lim, M. (2011) Transcient Civic Space in Jakarta Indonesia in Mike Douglass, KC Ho, Ooi Giok Ling (eds.) Globalization, the City and Civil Society in Pacific Asia, London: Routledge (2nd edition).

Lim, M (2009) Muslim Voices in the Blogosphere: Mosaic of Local-Global Discourses, in Gerard Goggin and Mark McLelland [eds.], Internationalizing Internet: Beyond Anglophone Paradigm, Routledge.

Lim, M. (2006a) Cyber-Urban Activism and Political Change in Indonesia Eastbound Journal, Vol. 1, 1-19

Lim, M. (2006b) Lost in Transition: The Internet and Reformasi in Indonesia in Jodi Dean, Jon Anderson and Geert Lovink (eds.), Reformatting Politics: Networked Communications and Global Civil Society, London: Routledge, pp. 85-106.

Lindlof, T. R. and Taylor, B.C. (2002). Qualitative Communication Research Methods – 2nd ed. California, US: Sage Publications, Inc.

307

Lumanto, R & Kosuge, T (2005) Telecommunications reform: Resolving performance problems in Indonesia. Technology in Society 27, pp. 517–529

Mansell, R. and U. Wehn (eds) (1998) Knowledge Societies: Information Technology for Sustainable Development for the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development, Oxford University Press,

Masterplan Percepatan dan Perluasan Pembangunan Ekonomi Indonesia (2011) (Masterplan for Acceleration and Expansion of Indonesia's Economic Development)

Marcus, G. E. (1995). Ethnography in/of the world system: The emergence of multi-sited ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology, 24, 95-117.

Marcus, G. E. (2008). The End(s) of Ethnography: Social/Cultural Anthropology's Signature Form of Producing Knowledge in Transition. Cultural Anthropology, 23: 1–14.

Marcus, G. E. (2012). The Viral Intimacies of Ethnographies Encounters: Prolegomenon to a Thought Experiment in the Play of Metaphors. Cultural Anthropology, 27, 168–174.

Mattelart, A. (1996). The Invention of Communication. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press.

Matthewman, S. (2013) Michel Foucault, Technology, and Actor-Network Theory. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 17 (2), 274–292

Minattur, J. (1966) Gajah Mada’s Palapa, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 39 (1), 185-187

Mirabito, M.M.A & Morgenstern, B.L (2004) The New Communications Technologies: Applications, Policy, and Impact, Fifth Edition, Burlington: Focal Press

Mol, A., & Law, J. (1994). Regions, networks and fluids: Anemia and social topology. Social Studies of Science, 24(4), 641-671.

Mrázek, Rudolf (2002) Engineers of Happy Land: Technology and Nationalism in a Colony. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press

308

Mueller, M. (2013) Universal Service: Competition, Interconnection and Monopoly in the Making of the American Telephone System

Nas, P & Prawito (2002). Java and De Groote Postweg, La Grande Route, the Great Mail Road, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 158 (4). pp. 707–725.

National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), (2014) Rencana Pitalebar Indonesia 2014 – 2019 Konektivitas • Inovasi • Transformasi

Nerone, J. (2003). Approaches to Media History. In A. N. Valdivia. (Eds.), A Companion to Media Studies. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.

Nugroho, Y. (2008). Adopting Technology, Transforming Society: The Internet and the Reshaping of Civil Society Activism in Indonesia. International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society 6(22) 77-105.

Nugroho, Y. (2009). Hubs and wires: Internet use in Indonesian NGOs is strengthening civil society Inside Indonesia, http://www.insideindonesia.org/edition-95/hubs-and-wires.

Nugroho, Y.(2010) Localising the global, globalising the local: The role of the Internet in shaping globalisation discourse in Indonesian NGOs. Journal of International Development. DOI: 10.1002/jid.1733

Neumann, I. B. & Sending, O. J. (2010) Governing the global polity: practice, mentality, rationality. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.

Ouellette, L. & Hay, J. (2008). Better Living through Reality TV: Television and Post- Welfare Citizenship. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.

Packer, J & Wiley S.B. C (2012) Introduction: the materiality of communication. In Packer, J & Wiley S.B. C (eds) Communication Matters: Materialist approaches to media, mobility, and networks. New York: Routledge, pp. 3-16

Packer, J. (2013) The Condition of Media’s Possibility: A Foucaldian Approach to Media History. In A.N. Valdivia (Ed.) The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies, First Edition. Malden, MA : Wiley-Blackwell.

Pandjaitan (2000) Undang-Undang Telekomunikasi: partisipasi publik dan pengaturan setengah hati Media Law Ombudsperson, Jakarta: Internews Indonesia

309

Purbo, O.W. (2002). Getting connected: The struggle to get Indonesia online. Inside Indonesia Online International Journal 72 14-16.

Purbo, O. W & Iqbal, T. (2008). Geektivism, International Development Research Centre. (pp. 103-115)

Purbo, O. W, & Walton, M. (2010). Notes from the field the foundation of cultural change in indonesia the tools: an early attempt in seeking low-cost.6, 45-48.

Ricklefs, M. C. (2001) A History of Modern Indonesia since c.1200 Third Edition, London: Palgrave

Rohman, I.K. (2014) Review of Indonesia Broadband Development

Sayes, E. (2014) Actor Network Theory and methodology: Just what does it mean to say that nonhumans have agency? Social Studies of Science, 44(1) 134 –149

Setiawan, D. (2010) Alokasi Frekuensi: Kebijakan Perencanaan Spektrum Indonesia, Departemen Komunikasi dan Informatika, Direktorat Jenderal Pos dan Telekomunikasi: Jakarta

Setiawan, D. (2013) National Broadband Plan: Case of Indonesia, Knowlege Sharing on Australian National Broadband with MASTEL and Australian Embassy (presentation material) Jakarta, Indonesia

Simon, J.P. (2008),"Universal service: between socio-political mythology and economic reality – an international cross comparison EU-USA of the regulatory-economic framework", Info,10 (5/6) pp.138-151

Sugondo, K & Bhinekawati, R (2005) Indonesia: Telecommuncation on a road to reforms in Allan Brown & Moazzem Hossain & Duc-Tho Nguyen (Eds), Telecommunications Reform in the Asia-Pacific Region, London: Edward Elgar

Star, S. L. (1999). Power, Technologies and the Phenomenology of Conventions: on Being Allergic to Onions. In Law, J. (Ed). A Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power, Technology and Domination. London: Routledge

310

The Broadband Commission for Digital Development (2013) The State of the Broadband 2013: Universalizing Broadband, A Report By Broadband Commission 2013, Geneva, Switzerland.

Tsing, A. L. (2005). Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. van de Kerkhof, Jasper (2005) Dutch enterprise in independent Indonesia: cooperation and confrontation, 1949-195, International Institute for Asian Studies Newsletter, 36 Edition

Verhoest, P. (2000) “The myth of universal service: hermeneutic considerations and political recommendations”, Media, Culture & Society, 22: 595-610,

USAid Report (2013) Global Broadband and Innovations Program, Recommendations for Reform of Indonesia’s USO Fund

USAid Report (2013) Global Broadband and Innovations Program, International Benchmark and Best Practice for Universal Service Fund Operation

Vargas E.V., Latour, B. et.al. (2008) The debate between Tarde and Durkheim, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space (26), pp. 761-777

Vlekke, B.H.M. (1959). Nusantara: A history of Indonesia. The Hague & Bandung: W. Van Hoeve.

Wells, L.T. & Ahmed, R. (2007) Making Foreign Investment Safe Property Rights and National Sovereignty. New York: Oxford University Press

Winner, L. (1980). Do Artifacts Have Politics?. Daedalus, 109 (1), 121-136

Winner, L. (1993). Upon Opening the Black Box and Finding It Empty: Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Technology. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 18 (3), 362-378

Woods, M. (2011) Archaeology, National Histories, and National Borders in Southeast Asia, Washington D.C.: Institute for National Strategic Studies

311

World Trade Organization (2011) International Mobile Roaming: Possible Implication for GATS Council for Trade in Services. Available at [http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/sym_march12_e/document_wto_en.pdf]

World Bank (1999) World Development Report 1998-99 [http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTRESEARCH/EXTW DRS/0,,contentMDK:22293493~pagePK:478093~piPK:477627~theSitePK:47762,00.h tm

World Bank Report (2011) Part II Backbone projects, sequence, packaging, and incentive

Yamin, M (1960) Gajah Mada: Pahlawan Pemersatu Nusantara, Jakarta: Balai Pustaka

Yayasan Litbang Telekomunikasi Informatika/ YLTI (1998) Nusantara 21: Kerangka Konseptual

Indonesia Letter of Intent, October 31, 1997 http://www.imf.org/external/np/loi/103197.htm

Ministry of Transportation Republik of Indonesia (1999) The Blueprint of Telecommunication Policy in Indonesia, Jakarta

Telecommunication Law of Republic of Indonesia No. 5/ 1964

Telecommunication Law of Republic of Indonesia No. 3/ 1989

Telecommunication Law of Republic of Indonesia No. 36/ 1999

312

APPENDIX

313

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

2G = Second Generation

3G = Third Generation

4G = Fourth Generation

ABT = Agreement of Basic Telecommunication

ADB = Asian Development Bank

AFTA = ASEAN Free Trade Area

ANT = Actor Network Theory

APEC = Asia – Pacific Economic Cooperation

APJII = Asosiasi Penyedia Jasa Internet Indonesia (Association of Indonesian Internet

Providers)

ASEAN = Association of South East Asian Nations

ASO = Analogue Switch-Off

ATVJI = Indonesian Network Television Association

ATVLI = Indonesian Association of Local Television

BCCM = Border Communication Coordination Meeting

BHP = Biaya Hak Penyelenggaraan (Telecommunication Fee)

BITP = Balai Telekomuniasi dan Informatika Pedesaan (Agency for Telecommunication and

Information Technology in Rural Areas)

BLU = Badan Layanan Umum (Public Service Agency)

314

BP3TI = Balai Penyedia dan Pengelola Pembiayaan Telekomunikasi dan Informatika

(Agency for Provision and Management of Financing of Telecommunications and

Information Technology)

BRTI = Badan Regulasi Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Indonesian Telecommunications

Regulatory Agency)

BWA = Broadband Wireless Access

CDMA = Code Division Multiple Access

CDNs = Content Delivery Networks

CMEA = Coordinating Ministry of Economic Affairs

DG PPI = Directorate General Administration of Post and Information (Dirjen Penyelenggara

Post and Informatika)

DG SDPPI = Directorate General of Resources and Application of Post and Information

Technology (Dirjen Sumberdaya dan Perangkat Pos dan Informatika)

DSO = Digital Switch Over

DTBD = Dinas Tetap dan Bergerak Darat Fixed and Mobile Terrestrial Spectrum (Sub

Direktorat Penataan Alokasi Spektrum)

EPC = Evolve Packet Core

GATT = General Agreement Tariff and Trade

GSM = Global System for Mobile Communication

HSPA = High Speed Packet Access

IBP = Indonesia Broadband Plan

315

ICG = Infrastructure Guarantee Company (, Perusahaan Penjamin Infrastruktur),

ICT = Information and Communication Technology

IDA = Infocomm Development Authority

IDI = ICT Development Index

IGGI = Inter-governmental Group of Indonesia

IIDP = Indonesian Information Development Project

IIX = International Internet Exchange

IMF = International Monetary Fund

INIS = Indonesia Infrastructure Support Program

INTELSAT = International Telecommunications Satellite Union

ISPs = Internet Service Providers

ITT = International Telephone and Telegraph

ITU = International Telecommunications Union

JCC = Joint Committee on Communications

KADIN = Kamar Dagang dan Industri (Indonesia Chamber of Commerce)

LPPPS = Lembaga Penyiaran Penyelenggara Program Siaran

LPPPM = Lembaga Penyiaran Penyelenggara Penyiaran Multipleksing

LTE = Long Term Evolution

MASTEL = Masyarakat Telekomuniasi (Telematic Society)

MCMC = Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission

MCIT = Ministry of Communication and Information Technology

MGDs = Millennium Development Goals

316

MNDP = Ministry or National Development Planning (or BAPPENAS)

MPLIK = Mobile Pusat Layanan Internet Kecamatan

NGBT = Negotiating Group of Basic Telecommunication

NIX = Nusantara Internet Exchange

OECF = Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund

PLIK = Pusat Layanan Internet Kecamatan (Sub-district Internet Service Center)

PT = Post en Telegraf Dienst (Post and Telegraph Office)

PTT = Post, Telegraf en Telefoon Dienst (Post, Telegraph, and Telephone Office)

RPJMN = Rencana Pembangunan Jangka Menengah (Midterm National Development Plan)

RTC = Round Table Conference

SDH = Synchronous Digital Hierarchy

UMTS = Universal Mobile Telecommunication System

USO = Universal Service Obligation

WSIS = World Summit of Information Society).

WTO = World Trade Organization

317