Behind the Scenes: SpaceX and Indonesia's Starlink Negotiations

The government met with SpaceX representatives to discuss the continuation of Starlink’s plans to enter the Indonesian telecommunications market. PPI Director General Wayan Toni Supriyanto said the meeting discussed how Starlink could operate to provide internet services to the public or business-to-customer (B2C) in Indonesia. “They have a business interest. They also contacted me through a Starlink representative named Rebecca,” he said on Sept 10.

However, Wayan explained that every foreign company that wants to do business in Indonesia must follow the applicable regulations. This means that Starlink must have an internet service provider (ISP) permit as an internet interconnection service provider (Network Access Point/NAP) and a VSAT permit. “If they don’t comply with this, we won’t give them permission,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Communications and Information Ministry has only issued a porting rights permit for Starlink to Telkomsat in June 2022. With this permit, Telkomsat can sell Starlink internet to corporations on a business-to-business (B2B) basis.

Separately, PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Persero) Tbk Corporate Communication and Investor Relations Senior Vice President Ahmad Reza said that through collaboration with Starlink, all services sold by Telkomsat are backhaul and B2B based. This means the service will be sold to ISPs and resold at retail to end users in remote areas. “This is complementary to B2B services, strengthening alternative existing backhaul routes owned by the Telkom Group,” he said.