An announcement made by the Ministry of Communication and Informatics (KOMINFO) highlighted that during the upcoming Asian Games 2018 in Jakarta and Palembang, the people will be able to experience the 5G network, made available only at the locations of the event.
Indonesia will be rolling out trials for the 5G network during the Asian Games event in August 2018. People can only try and use the 5G network at the locations of the Asian Games 2018 in Jakarta, shared Director General of Resources and Equipment of Post and Information Technology of the Ministry of Communication and Informatics Ismail.
Indonesia is hosting the Asian Games 2018 competition. This is the second time that Indonesia is hosting the Asian Games. The first one was in 1962. The Asian Games 2018 will be held in Jakarta and Palembang from 18 August to 2 September 2018.
Mr Ismail said Telkomsel was appointed as the operator that will build the 5G network to be used during the Asian Games 2018. In order for the people to feel what it is like to use a 5G network, they need to buy a new Telkomsel sim card. There are three spectrums of 5G networks that will be made available: the 3.5 gigabytes, the 26 gigabytes, and the 28 gigabytes.
Mr Ismail explained that the availability of 5G will be, "In the context of trials, and not commercial yet."
Describing mobile telecommunications refer to the overall technology, speed, frequency and system in numeric generations such as 3G, 4G or 5G. Each generation has unique technologies that define them.
3G was commercially introduced in 2001 to facilitate greater voice and data capacity and to support a wider range of applications and increase data transmission at a lower cost. This generation, for the first time, supported high speed wide band internet access and fixed wireless internet access, allowing video calls, chatting and conferencing, navigational maps and email, to name a few.
4G is an all IP-based network system initiated in 2010 to provide high speed, high quality and high capacity to users, while improving security as well as lower the cost of voice and data services, multimedia and internet over IP.
4G also introduced the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard, which only supports packet switching and an all IP Network. Previous generations, like GSM, UMTS and CMDA2000 use circuit-switching in voice calls, so adoption of LTE required carriers to re-engineer their voice call network.
5G is the next generation of commercial cellular network, set to greatly increase internet connectivity speeds in 2020. One of the main benefits of increased connectivity is the Internet of Things (IoT), which would to allow for seamless integration of devices on a scale never been achieved.
According to Mr Ismail, the goal of the government is to not allow other countries to leave Indonesia behind. In order to avoid this, Indonesia needs to participate, as a global player, in building a 5G network.
Even if the trials become successful, Indonesia will not immediately forego the 3G and 4G networks in order to switch to the 5G network.
Source: https://www.opengovasia.com/articles/indonesia-to-use-5g-network-at-asian-games-2018