Hi Guys,
Been living here for just about 4 years now. I know there have been quite a few posts regarding internet on the forum. Ive pretty much used them all. GPRS, 3g, Global extreme, speedy and now on Blue Line corporate.
As a former IBMer ive had quite a lot experience with data & data voice internet connections over the years. My honest opinion on the state of broadband in Indonesia is obviously pretty poor.
The good news!!!
As I understand it PT telekom has allocated funds for capex spending on its networks. Bad news is being a partly state owned monopoly I doubt we are going to see a massive increase in speed across its networks. I guess we will have to wait and see.
Having just moved,
into our new villa we were faced with the problem of no spare phone lines in our area. I was offered an option of buying 8 lines. As there is quite a lot of construction going on in our area I have put an application in to buy the 8 lines. No im not going to setup a call center however the thought did cross my mind for a brief instant. The lack of people who speak passable English would be the main hurdle to that flight of fancy. I will however be prepared to sell 6 of the 8 lines for whatever they cost me.
Anyway back to internet.
Im a heavy user of the internet. No i don't use bit torrent. Plenty of cheap DVD's for sale, but I do require a solid internet connection. Having used global extreme before and delt with the frustration of a crappy connection I was dubious of the quality of all the wireless services. A local friend referred me to blue line.
The Wonder and Excitement builds!!
Had blue line installed as an interim solution. At great expense I went with a corporate 1 Mbps synchronous plan/connection. The advantage of a corporate/business connection is that its not shared. To give you an example. With your Speedy connection it is shared with up to 8 other households and the connection is asynchronous (upload and download are working at different speeds). Compounded with sharing your connection this makes skype run like a bucket of s**t. Lost packets, noticeable echo, distortion, delay etc etc.
How good is this Blueline shenanigans ???
Skype runs full video conferencing with no noticeable slowdown or dropout any time of day. I can stream video & audio any time of day from the US, Australia and the UK. No problems with video from CNBC, Bloomberg and You tube, Internet radio Abc's JJJ or Radio 1 from the UK is fantastic . Internet pages load noticeably faster than speedy. Its just how the internet should work.
The downside ;(
Its ridiculously expensive. I don't know how they can sleep at night?? Probably very well... If you download lots of data it gets even more expensive. But if there is anything to take away from this it is that the yardstick for Bali has been set. Hopefully in a couple of years it will be available for all.
My Takeaway
Ill try a different plan next month. Unlimited data at 196kb upload/download. Not fussed if video conferencing doesn't always work but if there is no issues with skype voice and internet radio I will be more than happy. Hope you have enjoyed my story and ill update with how it all works out.
Jez
Been living here for just about 4 years now. I know there have been quite a few posts regarding internet on the forum. Ive pretty much used them all. GPRS, 3g, Global extreme, speedy and now on Blue Line corporate.
As a former IBMer ive had quite a lot experience with data & data voice internet connections over the years. My honest opinion on the state of broadband in Indonesia is obviously pretty poor.
The good news!!!
As I understand it PT telekom has allocated funds for capex spending on its networks. Bad news is being a partly state owned monopoly I doubt we are going to see a massive increase in speed across its networks. I guess we will have to wait and see.
Having just moved,
into our new villa we were faced with the problem of no spare phone lines in our area. I was offered an option of buying 8 lines. As there is quite a lot of construction going on in our area I have put an application in to buy the 8 lines. No im not going to setup a call center however the thought did cross my mind for a brief instant. The lack of people who speak passable English would be the main hurdle to that flight of fancy. I will however be prepared to sell 6 of the 8 lines for whatever they cost me.
Anyway back to internet.
Im a heavy user of the internet. No i don't use bit torrent. Plenty of cheap DVD's for sale, but I do require a solid internet connection. Having used global extreme before and delt with the frustration of a crappy connection I was dubious of the quality of all the wireless services. A local friend referred me to blue line.
The Wonder and Excitement builds!!
Had blue line installed as an interim solution. At great expense I went with a corporate 1 Mbps synchronous plan/connection. The advantage of a corporate/business connection is that its not shared. To give you an example. With your Speedy connection it is shared with up to 8 other households and the connection is asynchronous (upload and download are working at different speeds). Compounded with sharing your connection this makes skype run like a bucket of s**t. Lost packets, noticeable echo, distortion, delay etc etc.
How good is this Blueline shenanigans ???
Skype runs full video conferencing with no noticeable slowdown or dropout any time of day. I can stream video & audio any time of day from the US, Australia and the UK. No problems with video from CNBC, Bloomberg and You tube, Internet radio Abc's JJJ or Radio 1 from the UK is fantastic . Internet pages load noticeably faster than speedy. Its just how the internet should work.
The downside ;(
Its ridiculously expensive. I don't know how they can sleep at night?? Probably very well... If you download lots of data it gets even more expensive. But if there is anything to take away from this it is that the yardstick for Bali has been set. Hopefully in a couple of years it will be available for all.
My Takeaway
Ill try a different plan next month. Unlimited data at 196kb upload/download. Not fussed if video conferencing doesn't always work but if there is no issues with skype voice and internet radio I will be more than happy. Hope you have enjoyed my story and ill update with how it all works out.
Jez