by Novizal Kristianto

Telecommunication regulations develop in "slow motion". That would be an appropriate description of the development of telecommunication regulations in Indonesia. Since the issuance of Law No. 36 of 1999 concerning Telecommunication to replace Law No. 3 of 1989, until today, which is almost a five years period, there are still so manu pending issues which need to be settled.

We could start with the Indonesian Telecommunication Regulatory Body (BRTI) issue, which was established in 11 July 2003 by Decree of Minister of Communication No. 31 of 2003. The Decree sets out that BRTI is a body consisting of the Directorate General of Post and Telecommunication of the Ministry of Communication (DGPT) and Committee of Telecommunication Regulator (BRTI Committee), while the WTO and APEC guidelines state that a telecommunication regulating body must be legally and structurally independent from the government and further, the telecommunication industry player also seek for an independent body to be neutral in competition.

The presence of DGPT as part of the BRTI formation has driven people to question the independency of BRTI as (1) BRTI itself would become an "extension" of the DGPT, (2) the BRTI Committee members comprises of four tele-communications expert and headed by the Director of DGPT; and (3) every decision of the BRTI Committee should be approved by the Director of DGPT. Indonesian Telecommunication Community and other telecommunication players have been trying to propose a new structure of BRTI which is more appropriate with the function and expectation of the tele-communication industry. Since BRTI is the most important body in the telecommunication industry, the Government should pay more attention to this issue otherwise we are facing a severe "stagnation" in the telecommunication industry and may continue to face such "stagnation" for a long time to come.

Another big issue is the draft of electronic transaction which has been pending for discussion for almost two years in the hands of the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR). The internet and multimedia business players in particular, have been trying for months to request the DPR to review the draft as soon as possible since the need for cyberlaw has grown enormously. It is hoped that the draft will become the first cyberlaw in Indonesia.

Issue on the competition between telecommunication operators, in particular the GSM operators and CDMA operators are also increasing. The GSM operators need regulations that protect their business and make sure CDMA operators will not interfere with their business, since the Government has allowed lower tariff and unlimited coverage area for CDMA operators. The GSM operators are afraid that the CDMA operators are afraid that the CDMA operators could 'easily' take over their customers since they could certainly offer lower subscription price having the same coverage area with the GSM operators.

There are also several other issues that the Government should pay attention too. The e-government which become a 'national projects' is still in controversy between the central government and the regional government. Each party has their own 'idea' of developing an e-government and they also have their own interests on the 'project'. The copyright infringement issue has become bigger and bigger and cannot be controlled by the authority and the issue on whether DGPT should be in the same department with the department of communication and informatics also should be handled immediately by the government. Last but not least, the 2.4 GHz issue which hassle small internet businessmen where the regional monitoring board has been diligently conducting raids while the regulation on the 2,4 GHz remains soaked in controversy.

These are some of the big issues that should be settled by the (future) Government, if we would like to avoid the collapse of the telecommunication industry. However, we still need to wait for the elections to be over before we can expect any significant movement by the resposible members of the government towards telecommunication growth. Although for the telecommunication industry players, in particular the internet and multimedia players, all presidential candidates are not very promising for the industry since none of the future presidential teams have shown any interest in telecommunication issues.