Telkom Spin card to tap Indonesia's education market
Indonesia's largest telco, PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk (Telkom), has introduced Spin card as a part of an initiative to boost internet adoption with low-cost, high-speed service for students in 80,000 schools across the country.
Offered in partnership with local reseller PT Telesindo Shop, the Speedy Instant card is available for the price of 1,000 rupiah (US$0.09) for 24-hour, 10Mbps access through Telkom Wi-Fi networks.
Named Indonesia Digital School or IndiSchool, the initiative was launched in January offering simple, affordable, and reliable internet access for both state-owned and public schools with the deployment of three to five access points. A 1Gbps fiber infrastructure was implemented to support the network and its throughput at large.
In addition to its accessibility, affordability, and reach, the initiative also provides educational content for learning activities. An "Edu-Cloud", running on a public cloud is currently being developed as part of the Indonesia Cloud of Knowledge and is slated to be available soon. Additionally, in the next two years, some 1,000 courseware will be accessible electronically via computers and web-based learning.
In recognition that community support is important in student-learning activities, the Indischool Smart Community portal was set up and the education site is aiming for 1 million user sign-ups by 2015.
From a business perspective, Telkom acknowledged this sector as a new revenue stream which added 5 billion rupiah (US$410,000) to the company's earnings per month. On the telco's part, it invests 10 million rupiah (US$833) to 15 million rupiah (US$125) per school, according to local news portal, Detik.com.
With 20 percent implementation so far, the public-listed company already earns an average revenue per user (ARPU) of 100,000 rupiah (US$83) from the education sector. This is equivalent to what it collects from each subscriber of its 384Kbps Fixed Broadband Speedy service.
At this stage, the total number of cards distributed is 1 million. By year-end, another 4 million is expected to be given out students in secondary-level educational institutions in the Jabodetabek area to meet the targeted number of 100,000 schools.
The circulation is supported with help from four other in-country resellers and their nationwide outlets. By end-2015 the Wi-Fi infrastructure is slated to reach 400,000 learners.
Last week Telkom's sister company and mobile operator, Telkomsel, revealed its plan to capitalize the youth market. This segment is slightly different demographically, comprising consumers aged up to 24 years old, but it is targeting to work with schools by approaching their headmasters and teachers.
Fully aware of the fact that 33 million Indonesian netizens are youngsters, all operators in the country, not just Telkomsel, are looking to strengthen their footholds by executing new strategies targeting this sector.