KT to build high-speed satellite network in Indonesia

KT Sat Co., a satellite subsidiary of South Korea’s telecom giant KT Corp., will set up a high-speed satellite telecom network in Indonesia’s Papua province.

The company on Apr. 8 said that it has won a project from the local authorities to take part in building a satellite network infrastructure, in cooperation with the local satellite internet service provider DTP.

While the size of the deal was undisclosed, a KT Sat spokesman said that it is “larger than the majority of our network projects so far.”

KT Sat and DTP will together work to provide satellite network service to 1,300 public facilities, as part of the country’s Universal Service Obligation (USO) project.

USO is an Indonesian government-led initiative to provide telecom and network services to a wider number of citizens, with ultimate aim of closing the information gap among different local communities.

Papua, located on the east end of Indonesia bordering Papua New Guinea, has a population of 3.4 million and is the largest of the country’s 34 provinces.

As Indonesia is a large country with a multitude of islands, providing the network service through terrestrial cable is both challenging and inefficient.

The government of Indonesia thus believes satellite network expansion to be the solution in accelerating the country’s digital transformation.

“The Indonesian government picked us over other global telecom companies as they recognized the superior performance of our Koreasat-7,” said KT Sat CEO Song Kyung-min.

Koreasat-7 is KT Sat’s telecom satellite that provides network services across many countries including Korea, India and the Philippines. It is equipped with 33 satellite repeaters including those for ultra-high-definition (UHD) TVs.

KT Sat will launch Koreasat-6A, a satellite that will replace Koreasat-6 launched in 2010, by 2024 at the earliest to provide 5G network services.

Write to Han-gyeol Seon at always@hankyung.com
Daniel Cho edited this article.