Jakarta, August 25th , 2021. PT XL Axiata Tbk (XL Axiata) established partnership with universities to develop a 5G ecosystem. In this agenda, the company collaborates with two universities, namely IPB University (IPB) and Astra Manufacturing Polytechnic (Polman Astra), to jointly develop digital solutions with the Internet of Things (IoT) platform running on the 5G network to meet the needs of the industry. The signing of this cooperation agreement was carried out on Wednesday (25/8), which also marked 25 years of XL Axiata being present to serve the Indonesian people in an effort to Build a Digital Indonesia.
Director & Chief Technology Officer of XL Axiata, I Gede Darmayusa said, "Last week the Ministry of Communications and Informatics of the Republic of Indonesia has stated that XL Axiata has passed the Operational Feasibility Test to deploy 5G networks in Indonesia. Therefore, we will accelerate the development of the 5G ecosystem, in line with the spirit to continue to innovate and always be adaptive to every development of telecommunication technology globally."
Gede added that the existence of the 5G network is expected to pave the way for industry players to perform a lot of process efficiency through digital transformation by utilizing IoT smart infrastructure. According to him, with faster and more stable internet access capabilities, the availability of 5G networks is expected to be the main driver of the internet-based industry.
XL Axiata's collaboration with the two campuses will last for the next two years. XL Axiata through the X-Camp IoT development laboratory with the two universities will jointly share knowledge and expertise in order to increase competence to be able to provide an IoT-based platform on the 5G network to meet the needs of the business world, especially the agriculture and manufacturing sectors.
IPB is widely known as a center of excellence in agriculture which has abundant resources in responding to the challenges of the agricultural industry. Indonesia, with its abundant agricultural land and natural resource commodities, opens up opportunities for the application of technology to answer the need for the provision and use of precise agricultural data. Moreover, IPB has also started to develop several agricultural production tools based on artificial intelligence.
Meanwhile, a number of studies have stated that the digitization of infrastructure in Indonesia will be widely applied in the manufacturing sector. Polman Astra will be the right partner in providing solutions to the manufacturing industry, including smart factories. In the future, it is hoped that more educational institutions will take part in the development of the 5G ecosystem in Indonesia.
“Because each industry player has their own uniqueness, the solutions provided must really answer the needs that are sometimes very specific. Therefore, we feel the need to cooperate with research institutions such as campuses in order to jointly explore problems and appropriate solutions,” said Gede.
One of the IoT service solutions that are being developed with IPB and Dian Nuswantoro University (UDINUS) includes the Melon Harvesting Robot, which is a solution for determining harvest times accurately with image processing. Implementation of 5G XL Axiata to support real-time communication between robots and the cloud/server. The next development is the manufacture of a second prototype robot for pruning melon leaves.
Meanwhile, Polman Astra and X-Camp will also implement 5G in Quality Auto Inspection, which is a solution related to quality control of manufactured goods based on image processing, followed by part delivery with drones to Auto Transfer - AGV (Automated Guided Vehicle). This use case will be applied in PT Akebono Brake Astra Indonesia. In addition, a CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machine is also being developed which will be supported with 5G connectivity so that it can be controlled remotely with precision.
For the development of IoT-based digital solutions, XL Axiata through X-Camp has collaborated with several campuses to provide solutions for several industries such as agriculture, logistics, to smart building. With the presence of the 5G network, it is hoped that the development of devices that have been carried out will lead to more advanced solutions and truly answer the needs of the increasingly complex industrial world because it requires high transmission speeds.
Expansion of 5G Network
After successfully deploying 5G networks in five cities, namely Depok, South Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, and Surabaya, XL Axiata has gradually continued to expand its 5G network to other cities. Medan, Banjarmasin and Makassar will be XL Axiata's next 5G cities, targeted to be ready in mid-September 2021. These cities were selected based on the readiness of existing network infrastructure for 5G deployment. Customers and communities in the three cities will be able to try access to 5G services at each XL Center.
The expansion of the 5G network is part of efforts to accelerate the preparation of the necessary ecosystems, such as network fiberization in all operating areas, collaboration with device providers in providing 5G smartphone devices so that customers and the public can easily get them, provision of human resources, to education to improve understanding to the public about the benefits of 5G technology to support daily life.
Currently, XL Axiata has more than 56 million subscribers, supported by more than 156 thousand BTS, including more than 65 thousand 4G BTS. XL Axiata's 4G LTE network also continues to be expanded, and currently it has reached more than 458 cities/regencies in various regions in Indonesia. XL Axiata also continues to invest in fiber networks, transmission, backhaul, network modernization, and various other network upgrades to improve stability, network capacity, and service quality in line with the continued increase in data service traffic.