Current Development: Domestic Satellites Make Indonesia a Model of Telecommunications Development

Our Palapa A Domestic Satellite System, named for a mythical fruit, was inaugurated on August 17, 1976, almost 30 years ago, and it was surprising how quickly our nation started enjoying the ease and speed of telephone connections from an affordable high quality direct distance dialed network. Prior to this, Indonesian inter-island public telecommunications were served mainly by way of High Frequency radio. Dependence on the ionosphere limited connections to a few hours a day. In addition to poor capacity and quality, anyone wanting to place a call had to make prior booking through human operators