Indonesia’s Surge brings Open RAN into its FWA fold

• Surge is a major fibre network operator in Indonesia
• It is expanding its services portfolio to include fixed wireless access (FWA) broadband services
• It is also adopting a multivendor tech supply model, with Open RAN-focused joint venture Orex SAI landing a significant deal

With a spectrum licence now secured for Indonesia’s most populated islands, fibre network operator PT Solusi Sinergi Digital Tbk, better known as Surge, is ready to roll out a major 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) network, with Open RAN-focused joint venture Orex SAI now signed up as a major supplier of technology and associated deployment services. 

Surge already operates a 6,900km fibre backbone network across Java that connects 58 edge cloud datacentres. It has also rolled out fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) infrastructure that reaches more than 1.5 million homes, of which 831,000 (55% take-up rate) have signed up for the commercial service. It expects to reach 2.5 million premises by the end of this year and have 1.5 million FTTP customers (which would equate to a 60% take-up rate). 

But only a small part of Indonesia is suitable for fixed-line infrastructure due to its terrain: It has a population of more than 280 million people spread across about 6,000 inhabited islands (the country has a total of more than 17,000 islands), many of which have a topography that makes fibre deployment uneconomic. 

So Surge, with the support of the Indonesian and Japanese governments, has developed an Affordable Broadband Project plan, the foundation of which is a major 5G FWA network rollout. Surge has been working with multiple vendor partners for tests and trials and now, finally, it has the spectrum licence it needed to be able to push ahead with its plan. 

In late October, Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs (Komdigi) announced the results of its 2025 broadband wireless access (BWA) 1.4 GHz spectrum auction. Surge won the prized Region 1 licence – covering Java, Papua and Maluku, collectively representing more than 60% of Indonesia’s total population – with a bid of 403.76bn Indonesian rupiahs ($24m). (Java alone is home to 56.1% of Indonesia’s population.)

Region 1 is home to 45 million households, 61% of Indonesia’s total 73.9 million homes, according to Surge (other estimates put the total higher).

Region 1 is “Indonesia’s most strategic market potential for digital infrastructure… From a household and broadband adoption standpoint, this region represents over 60% of the national broadband potential, making it the most attractive area for the deployment of 1.4 GHz BWA services,” according to Surge. 

Currently, Indonesia’s fixed broadband penetration is very low (about 21%), but it is expected to grow significantly over the next five years, with the national fixed broadband sector forecast to be as large as 40 million homes by 2030. 

Surge director Shannedy Ong stated: “Fixed broadband penetration in Indonesia is among the lowest in South-east Asia. Looking ahead, we expect significant growth over the next five years. The trigger point will be FWA, with a 57% growth rate (2025-30), while FTTH [fibre-to-the-home] will grow around 10%. Our target market, Region 1 (covering Java, Papua and Maluku), is a ‘golden zone’ with huge potential.”

Surge has been preparing for its FWA rollout for about two years, collaborating with the likes of Orex SAI, Huawei, Nokia, Baicells and Fiberhome for the required radio access network (RAN) technology and with Qualcomm and Shanghai, China-based ASR Microelectronics for the customer premises equipment (CPE) wireless chipsets that will receive the broadband signal from the 5G FWA antennas. 

Surge is now ready to begin its commercial FWA deployment – using space on more than 50,000 existing cell towers from neutral host operators, such as PT Tower Bersama Infrastructure Tbk (TBIG) and PT Centratama Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk (Centratama) – in areas not set to be reached by FTTP coverage. It also plans to launch commercial 5G FWA services in early 2026 with a 100 Mbit/s service for 100,000 Indonesian rupiahs ($5.97) per month for unlimited data usage and free installation and CPE rental. 

The operator recently announced a strategic partnership with Huawei for the joint development of the core, RAN and CPE technology needed to reach 5 million premises with FWA services, as well as a multi-year agreement with Qualcomm Technologies for the supply of the Qualcomm Dragonwing FWA platform solutions (comprising modem, RF front-end and Wi-Fi technologies) that will be used in the CPE products developed for a total addressable FWA services market of up to 25 million households over the next five years.

Open RAN in the mix

Now Surge has also signed a deal with Orex SAI for the provision of 5G Open RAN FWA network equipment (including RAN and 5G core platform technology from NEC) to be deployed at up to 4,800 base stations in the initial deployment phase. Orex SAI will also provide systems integration and network deployment support services. TelecomTV is awaiting further details, including how many premises will be reached with this initial base station deployment. 

A contract value was not shared by the parties but a recent report from Asia Nikkei (subscription required) suggests the value of this initial contract is about $200m but that Orex SAI is currently in line for deals worth $1bn over nine years, about one-third of Surge’s planned $3bn 5G FWA investment budget. Orex SAI’s CTO, Sadayuki Abeta, declined to comment on that reported contract value when asked about the Asia Nikkei report by TelecomTV. 

The two parties initially signed a memorandum of understanding late last year and struck an initial agreement in March this year to develop a field trial of 5G Open RAN technology. Orex SAI subsequently established a local subsidiary, PT Orex SAI Indonesia, which developed the world’s first type-approved radio unit (RU) for the n50 (1.4 GHz) frequency band in Indonesia.

Now a commercial contract has been signed and Indonesia is to witness a major rollout of Open RAN technology to support 5G FWA services and it’ll be interesting to see if Surge deploys third-party Open RAN radio units as part of this particular deployment over time or whether it will stick with a single vendor.  

Notably, Nokia was namechecked in the initial deal in March as a potential provider of 5G FWA CPE units and fixed network (optical, router) technology, but it has not been mentioned in the contract announcement. 

Orex SAI CEO Hiroshi Kobayashi stated: “Together with Surge, we have developed a scalable 5G FWA 1.4GHz solution that has progressed to the commercial stage. We are honoured to launch this world-first Open RAN FWA 1.4GHz initiative in Indonesia and remain committed to delivering technologies that empower communities and accelerate digital growth.”

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV