No Internet

I have been in Indonesia now for many years and for a few of them I had an Internet connection to the place I was staying. Since 2000 I have been connected to the web and probably at some point became hugely dependent on it for entertainment and knowledge, so much so, sleep and getting things done became harder to achieve. Then I moved to Indonesia.

For the past 8 years an Internet connection in my home has been a dream. I did have internet at the apartment I was in but it was slow and limited but I could open things like HTML pages and maybe browse the web early morning or late at night, otherwise it was not great. Apart from than that I have made use of free WiFi and the crappy inconsistent 3G signal the country has to offer.

So many networks, so many deals, but all suffer from coverage issues

I have bought into Bolt the 4G/3G OTA provider and its actually very good as there is a constant signal in the house. 3G on all networks where I am is patchy and unhelpful and frustrating. Real connected Internet is not possible currently due to the place I live and the distance from the nearest connection box. If I rented a telephone line then I could have the Internet via that option, but the service is lacklustre and not reliable. Our laptops remain closed and not able to be used, which is a great shame to me.

My phone and tab both are therefore used heavily to help meet the needs of the family for searching and browsing. Jeremy uses my tab for watching stuff on YouTube and I like to browse and chat and read through the net. If I had a real connection then I am sure that I would not even want to watch TV (which I dont really want to do now) instead use the net for shows and things as it is more preferred. As it is I have Indovision with extra channels and of the 200+ I watch about 10 (3 of them are for children under 6).

Happily/Luckily work is a wifi zone and the internet is great as it works most of the time so I can, should I choose to, connect and browse when not researching materials from there. The places I eat and visit with the wife and kids are always WiFi areas so that is also good, but that does not help at home. Bolt is as I have said a great provider and has good speeds but it is overall expensive especially for a family which are on line a lot.

100k (rupiah) gets you 5gb and 8gb free. The free stuff is used between 1am and 8am, which however stupid that sounds is great as I am awake before 6 most days and so all browsing and time Jeremy spent watching videos, should want that, is done for free. So is downloading offline YouTube content for viewing later, another useful idea for spending the free allowance. But then at 8am things have to be shut down so that the data is not all gone in a day otherwise the data cost will be too high. 

Network Tri (3) is pretty good at 30,000 for 1.25gb but I dont have a signal but outside the house, it is often very good.

But again it needs to be controlled.

Gone are the days of SMS whereby should you send 4 SMS to the same number on the same network as yours you would get another 20 free, nope we are all using Whatsapp or Line or something that needs to have at least Edge as the carrier.

Living out in Jakarta has its high points and its plus points but the Internet is definitely not one of them. However, the fact remains that without a decent signal I cant just sit there and scroll through the pages of the world all day, I can actually do things I enjoy more and spend time in conversation with those around me. Something in this day and age which is getting harder to do.