Jakarta. State-owned telecommunication company Telkom Indonesia, with its subsidiary Telkomsat, launched the Red and White 2 Satellite using Elon Musk's SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Wednesday

This marks the 11th satellite for Telkom Group and the first to utilize high-throughput satellite (HTS) technology.

"This is a significant milestone for Telkom Group, especially in supporting connectivity access across Indonesia, especially in remote areas. The presence of the satellite also strengthens Telkom Group's satellite business portfolio run by Telkomsat," said Telkom's CEO, Ririek Adriansyah, from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Wednesday.

Telkom invested Rp 3.5 trillion (223.6 million) in constructing the satellite, which is scheduled to begin operations in April 2024. The development of the satellite took approximately two years, starting from the end of 2021.

This satellite utilizes the Spacebus 4000B2 platform with a design life of 15 years, manufactured by France's Thales Alenia Space as the main contractor responsible for design, construction, and testing.

Telkomsat's CEO, Lukman Hakim, sees significant potential for enterprise customers in the mining industry and the maritime sector, especially those in hard-to-reach areas without terrestrial services.

Responding to potential competition with Starlink, Elon Musk's satellite company, Lukman said TLKM, through Telkomsat, already has a contract with Starlink for backhaul services.

Lukman mentioned that Starlink has a larger capacity than the Red and White 2 Satellite, focusing on customers requiring bandwidth over 100 megabytes. For customers needing bandwidth below 25 megabytes per second, the Red and White 2 Satellite aims to capture this market. 

According to Starlink's website, the company is eyeing to provide services across all of Indonesia this year. To register, a customer can visit the company's website, put in the address, and pay a fully refundable deposit of $9. 

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