Telkom Speedy Punishes Bali Again

[Sanurian]

The poorly named "TelkomSpeedy" seems to have done it again.

It's been the brunt of malicious rumours in the past, (most of which turned out to be true, as far as I can tell), criticism, (mostly warranted), corrupted charges, and all the rest. All this from Indonesian users!

Various Indonesians I have contact with through blog-sites have recently been telling me that TelkomSpeedy has increased it's service speed lately. I haven't seen any such thing, but then, I live in Bali.

Is Bali being punished for not being a Moslem enclave of Indonesia? My curiosity getting the better of me, I decided to do some checks for myself.

First stop: "official" TelkomSpeedy websites. (Yes, they have more than one. Try and find the real one.) Interesting information from one or two years ago. Why can't they put current 'information' there? Beats me.

Second stop: Found one that seems to be up-to-date, (appearances can be deceiving). And yes, service speeds have increased, (minutely), if you happen to live in some shit-kicker village in Java. What's the point?

Look at the list of available places for this wonderful 'improvement' and Bali is nowhere to be seen. I would have thought that if anywhere, Bali should have gotten it first! Wrong. Telephoned some TelkomSpeedy personnel today and guess what? They knew nothing, or at least, couldn't shed any light on the matter.

Even so, what are the 'speed enhancements' supposed to be? As far as I know, TelkomSpeedy is still running 802.11b, (the slowest). No sign of the 'g' version, let alone 'n' or beyond. Promised transfer is supposed to be 1Mbs down and 128kbs up. That's some improvement but still borderline kiddie's broadband, in my opinion.

Indonesia's got a long way to go before it can provide truly fast internet connections at affordable prices.

Anybody else out there using TelkomSpeedy on this forum? If so, maybe we should ask Telkom why it can't improve our connection speeds in Bali while it can in Java?

:shock:

[balijohn]

Hi Sanurian,

I am a little confused by your opinion that Bali should be on some kind of priority list for any developments in this department!

Is this because the majority of expats and tourists are in bali? And perhaps, if that is the reason, because we are used to more efficient services we should be entitled to 'first dibs'?

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Telkom (and most other 'National' companies) created to serve ALL the people of Indonesia? And as such does it not stand to reason that any improvements in services - if they can't be immediately implemented on a 100% national scale - would be implemented where the MOST LOCAL people would benefit?

BTW what exactly is your definition of a 'shit-kicker' village? I'm sure the people that live there and call it a home that they are proud of would love to know

[Sanurian]

...Is this because the majority of expats and tourists are in bali? And perhaps, if that is the reason, because we are used to more efficient services we should be entitled to 'first dibs'?...

Possibly.

Yes - I agree with you that the first cab-off-the-rank with regard to enhanced Indonesian" services" of any kind should be aimed at the most populous areas. However, it seems to me that the island of Bali repeatedly gets the short end of the stick. I believe it's safe to say that Bali's tourism industry generates a lot of income for companies and individuals in Jakarta, and foreign multinationals. It's a big money spinner for many.

The availability of "advanced" technological services often seems to be in areas like Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya and Jogjakarta. Why not Bali? Sure, those areas are much bigger population centres but I believe Bali should get a bigger slice of the pie for its infrastructures. It almost seems that Bali doesn't exist or at least, is relegated some kind of lower ranking. I disagree with that.

My reference to tiny villages on the "mainland" was not meant to offend anybody. I just fail to see how upgrading existing internet services to areas where people can't even afford computers, or telephones for that matter, is an actual improvement. Perhaps big companies like Telkom should donate equipment to poor villages so the people there can benefit.

Meanwhile, here in Bali, there are currently in excess of 30 ISPs (Internet Service Providers), all competing with each other. TelkomSpeedy is one of the biggest ones and I would have thought it in their interest, from a business point of view, to do more than it does. Maybe it just doesn't care.

And "shit-kicker", in the context of my original post, is simply slang for something that's relatively "insignificant" in the scheme of things. I apologise to you or anyone else who might have found this offensive. Not my intention.

:shock:

[mimpimanis]

Phil be thankful you arent in Kuta, Lombok where there is no broadband, and even if you had internet the power goes off nearly every day and sometimes for days at a time and the mains water only gets turned ON a few hours a time a few times a week and in the dry season more like once a week! Much as I love Lombok it is one of the reasons I started spending more and more time in Bali with Marty.

[Roy]

Hi Phil!

We’ve been on Telkom Speedy for a while now, and I guess we were lucky to get in with the initial wave of sign ups as I’ve heard that there is a waiting list now.

How can I judge the speed? Well, compared to what we used to have...dial up modem with Centrin....it’s night and day for us. Frequently we experience a slow down around 4 to 6 PM which I gather is a peak time for internet use by tourists on the island?

“The availability of "advanced" technological services often seems to be in areas like Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya and Jogjakarta. Why not Bali?”

One possible reason, and I’m just speculating, is that each of those four cities you mention are each homes to the top Indonesian universities. Perhaps it is believed that the necessity for the latest in technology is needed there the most in order for these universities to maintain their status? Just a thought.

One thing is for certain though, and that is that at least all in all, Indonesia is headed in the right direction...that being forward rather than backward, in internet access. You know me Phil. I am the consummate optimist! :D Cheers

[Sanurian]

...One possible reason, and I’m just speculating, is that each of those four cities you mention are each homes to the top Indonesian universities. Perhaps it is believed that the necessity for the latest in technology is needed there the most in order for these universities to maintain their status?...

I guess that's a possibility, Roy, but Bali has universities, too. The big cities have ISP choices that are even faster and cheaper than TelkomSpeedy, so I doubt that's the reason. It just doesn't make much sense to me.

I've noticed the slow-downs here as well, often on weekday afternoons around 3pm. I don't think it has anything to do with peak tourist usage. Might be more to do with office staff pilfering net time from their employers. I know of some blogging experts in Java, for example, who freely admit to this. Even to the extent that they are often off-line on weekends when they have to pay for their own connections.

Another factor could well be the time differences between Indonesia and the USA. One of the main "pipe-lines" out of this country jumps to Singapore and eventually across the Pacific to the USA. Most free e-mail accounts are based in the USA, as we all know. Did I mention things like youtube, torrent downloaders, etc? They all add up.

An interesting little internet site for gaining some insight into your download and upload times is speedtest http://speedtest.net/

This is an aside, but I found its listing of Top Countries by Download Speed interesting. Here is the list as at 30 May 2008 (all figures are kb/s...that's kilobits/second):

Japan 14453
Sweden 8788
Romania 7813
Latvia 7602
Lithuania 6786
Bulgaria 6620
Korea 6568
Netherlands 6162
Germany 6083
Russian Fed 5877

No sign of Indonesia there, including Bali and Kuta, Lombok...
Maybe next year.

:D :shock: