Telkomsel, together with technology partners Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia and ZTE, has launched 4.5G services in nine cities in Indonesia – albeit mainly as a demo for customers in its “GraPARI” customer service centers.
Telkomsel says that it launched the LTE-Advanced service in 11 GraPARI centers in Medan, Jakarta, Bandung, Denpasar, Mataram, Pontianak, Makassar, Manado and Ambon. The service utilizes 20 MHz of bandwidth in the 1800-MHz frequency band with 4X4 MIMO technology. That enables the cellco to achieve mobile data speeds double that of LTE – up to 1 Gbps, according to a trial of the technology with Huawei in October – with latency of less than 10 milliseconds.
However, because 4.5G-compatible devices aren’t in widespread use in Indonesia, Telkomsel has installed an experience booth in each of the 11 GraPARI centers where customers can use 4.5G devices supplied by the cellco to experience the service. In addition, customers can tether their own devices to the 4.5G devices via Wi-Fi.
Telkomsel’s director of networks Sukardi Silalahi said the implementation of 4.5G “is a step towards the implementation of 5G technology in Indonesia” as customer demand for mobile data services escalates, and as they become more familiar with digital applications.
Sukardi added that Telkomsel has rolled out more than 5,200 LTE eNode Bs serving more than 12 million LTE customers in more than 180 city districts in Indonesia today.
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