Warn
Warnet is the name for internet cafés in Indonesia . The term is made up of the words warung - an Indonesian expression for small kiosks or food stalls with seats on the roadside, where people often meet to eat together - and the Internet.
One of the main problems of Indonesia, the infrastructural gap that exists between Java and the other islands of the island state, is also evident in the spread of the warnets . Not only higher schools, telephone networks and developed roads, but also access to the Internet deteriorates the further you get away from the main island of Java. In 2002, 35% of the warnets were concentrated in Jakarta , where just under 5% of the Indonesian population live, 25% in West Java, 15% in Central Java and Yogyakarta , and 11% in East Java. 6% of the internet cafes are in Sumatra , 3% in Bali and in West Nusatenggara and 2% each are in Sulawesi and Kalimantan . The remaining percent is divided between the provinces of Maluku and Irian Jaya .
history
There are different opinions about the origin of the Indonesian internet cafés. David T. Hill and Krishna Sen claim that the first warnets emerged in Yogyakarta in September 1996 and from there first spread to the university cities of Java. Merlyna Lim, on the other hand, says warnings spread from Bandung and Jakarta. After Lim, Onno Purbo, a computer specialist and internet activist from the Computer Network Research Group (CNRG) of the Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB) founded the first warnet s in Bandung and Jakarta. The different views can be justified by the fact that Lim studied and researched in Bandung, while Hill and Sen carried out their research mainly in Yogyakarta. Bandung and Yogyakarta are the most important university cities in Indonesia. The student clientele and the "Internet potential" were high for both.
Especially after the Asian crisis, the warnet s got more and more popular because hardly anyone could afford private internet anymore. The number of private Internet access in Indonesia was very limited even before the Asian crisis . Most internet users use office or university entrances in addition to internet cafés.
The Indonesian Post also opened its own Internet café division - the state-owned Wasantara-net. The aim should be to spread the Internet as a parallel communication medium to telephone and fax within the framework of the fifth national development plan Repelita V throughout Indonesia, but also to regain control over the Internet and to compete with private, independent warnets .
economy
In the beginning, warnet s were a typical example of small and medium-sized companies run by medium-sized entrepreneurs or university graduates. In the beginning, they concentrated on the proximity of universities and were geared towards the student clientele. However, the boom in the Internet increasingly brought large companies to the scene.
In 2000, the multinational IT group MIH (Myriad International Holding) stormed the Indonesian Internet market, bought local Internet portals and ISPs and built large, technically well-equipped Internet cafes, especially in Jakarta and the other Internet strongholds. Two years later, the group declared itself to be Indonesia's largest Internet provider with its "M-Web" Internet cafés, before selling its cafés again a year later and withdrawing from Indonesia. In May 2001 , AWARI and its local branch AWAYO (Asosiasi Warnet Yogyakarta) organized massive protests against the opening of large “M-Web” branches in Yogyakarta .
Indonesian conglomerates are also increasingly interested in setting up Internet cafés. Myohdotcom specializes in the environment of well-known universities and their provision of Internet access, while PT Semestra Citra Intan focuses on the university environment as well as warnet s in the booming shopping malls of the big cities. Since these companies are less focused on the widespread use of the Internet and more on making fast and high profits, it is doubtful that the real gap in access to the virtual world between Java, Bali and the rest of Indonesia is caused by the participation of large business groups will be annulled.
In order to save costs and to become independent of the Indonesian telephone company Telkom Indonesia , more and more Internet cafes and neighborhood groups are joining forces to use wireless Internet access . These connections are not only faster, they also avoid Telkom's costly minute billing and its regular price increases. The wireless reception makes it possible to share the purchase and maintenance costs among several parties - warnet s, private households, local organizations.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c d Hill: Plotting Public Participation on Indonesia's Internet , South East Asia Research 2003
- ↑ a b Lim, Merlyna: From real to virtual (and back again) - Civil society, public sphere, and the Internet in Indonesia in KC Ho, Randolph Kluver and Kenneth CC Yang: Asia.com. Asia encounters the Internet , Routledge Courzon, London and New York 2003
- ^ Hill, Sen: Wiring the Warung to Global Gateways. The Internet in Indonesia in Indonesia No 63 , Cornell University Press 1997