Like almost everyone in the world, Indonesians hope for a signal when they look at their phone. It’s a reasonable expectation. But setting up the wireless infrastructure to deliver that signal isn’t easy in a country of mountains and thick jungles. And Indonesia’s tropical location means that the weather there regularly brings showers or intense heat.
Indonesia’s tropical paradise islands are often disconnected
“Connecting the Islands” follows the intrepid engineers and technicians to the farthest reaches of Indonesia who regularly overcome daunting odds to provide essential connectivity to isolated communities. Indonesia is often called the land of a thousand islands, but there is so much more to it. .
Communication technologies must be affordable for remote villages in Indonesia
“Indonesia is a country whose land area is made up of land and water,” says Jonny G. Plate, Minister of Information and Communications Technology. “It covers 7.5 million square kilometers and has 17,500 islands that we need to connect…all of them!”
The video takes you to the most remote areas of the province of Papua in eastern Indonesia. There, the geography poses particularly great challenges. Just traveling to the various Papuan islands can be dangerous due to high waves at sea when the weather suddenly changes. And on land, heavy rains often turn roads into muddy puddles that SUVs get stuck in. And sometimes the only way to cross a river to reach a base station site is with the help of ziplines.
Getting to the site with the equipment can be a huge challenge
It’s not just the engineers who have to go to the sites, the equipment has to be brought in as well. “There was a site, once you reach the village, you have to walk three kilometers to the site,” recalls Muhammad Umar Safi’i, Huawei’s wireless engineer. “Our team has to carry the heavy tools for 3 km on foot.”
For Danu Prahara, installation team leader at Huawei partner CGI, each day spent delivering connectivity to residents of Papua brings its own challenges. “All work in Papua is an adventure,” he says. “There is never an easy journey.”
Climbing tall towers safely to set up butterfly sites requires training
But in the end, it’s all worth it. Umar Safi’I recalls tears in a villager’s eyes when she spotted a signal on her phone. This meant that she would no longer need to walk to the end of the village pier in the faint hope of being able to connect with a relative.
Huawei has developed a wide range of products, technologies and know-how to provide connectivity to the tens of millions of people around the world who are still unconnected. This includes low cost antennas; solar energy, batteries and energy management systems; and a wide range of microwave links that can reach isolated communities.
Solutions can be basic and cheap, or more sophisticated, depending on local needs. Huawei’s highly cost-effective RuralStar solution represents a complete overhaul of base station design. RuralStar is made up of robust but simple telecommunications components. The kit requires so little energy to operate that a few solar panels are enough. More complex “butterfly sites” are installed on taller antenna poles. They can usually provide network coverage on multiple frequency bands and can serve a wider territory due to their height.
Watch the trailer below for Connect the Islands. The full 25-minute video will be posted here on November 24. And join us on November 23 for our sustainability event Connectivity+: Innovate for Impact, where you can learn how connectivity is advancing in isolated communities around the world.