Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison has reportedly confirmed that it’s actively building up its 4G network in Indonesia’s future capital city Nusantara.
According to Nikkei Asia, Indosat president director and CEO Vikram Sinha said that the operator already has 30 4G sites installed in Nusantara, and has invested $10 million to add another 30 to 40 sites to boost the network.
"[In Nusantara] we will be working very closely with the authorities to ensure that there is world-class digital infrastructure," Sinha told Nikkei Asia.
As for why Indosat is only deploying 4G rather than 5G in Nusantara, Sinha said that there are "still a lot of things which can be done” with 4G.
While Indosat has launched 5G in eight cities so far, “We don't want to rush towards 5G," Sinha said.
The $30 billion Nusantara project has been under construction since July 2022. While the overall goal is to relocate up to 1.9 million people in Jakarta to Nusantara by 2045, the Indonesian government plans to start moving some key functions from Jakarta to Nusantara in August next year.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has been pushing the project partly as a practical measure to reduce Jakarta’s population and traffic congestion, and partly as an opportunity to start fresh with a world-class green smart city.
Earlier this month, Telkom Indonesia and KT Corp signed an MoU to collaborate on a smart city project for Nusantara.