Communication Device and Providers Options

Providers and Prepaid card

 
You should never have a plan to go dark when you visit a new place.  Make sure that your mobile subscription is recognized by Indonesia's providers.  At least you have 1 mobile phone that can contact somebody while you are in Jakarta.   If you have a plan of staying more than a week in Jakarta, I suggest you may buy another cheap GSM mobile phone with prepaid SIM card or just a prepaid card to be plugged in into your existing cellular phone if applicable.


In Jakarta, telecommunication providers have several option of network  and subscription type of mobile phone :

GSM protocols :

1. 2G
2. 2.5G (GPRS)
3. 2.75G (EDGE)
4. 3G (UMTS)
5. 3.5G (HSDPA + including broadband internet w/data transfer)
6. 3.75G (HSUPA + including broadband internet w/data transfer)

 CDMA protocols :

1. CDMA One
2. CDMA 2000
3. WCDMA

Price range of GSM cellular phone: US$ 20 up to US$ 700

Price range of CDMA cellular phone: US$ 25 up to US$ 200

Type of GSM card: Prepaid (recommended) and Postpaid.

Providers: Telkomsel (Kartu As), Indosat (Mentari), XL (Bebas dan Jempol), Three, Axis, Starone, Flexi, Esia, Smartfrend.

For GSM prepaid card, usually each provider has its starting package consist of certain amount of pulse that you can use for temporal expiry.  Pay close attention to its expiry date, so that you can top up the card before being obsolete.  Top up cost will vary from 10.000 rupiah up to hundreds of thousand rupiah. Higher top up cost means longer expiration time.

Using local cheap cellular phone with its prepaid SIM card not always cost you less than using your original mobile phone, unless you keep the cellular phone with a value for another usage in the future.   But using the local prepaid subscription to call the other local phone in Jakarta, will surely become cheaper rather than using your own phone.   

Note: in very first activation of cellular phone, you will be need to submit your Name, ID number, address, gender, etc. by certain layout through SMS, don't be confused.  Just follow the instruction otherwise you cannot use the SIM card anyway.