Indonesian TD-LTE wireless broadband start-up Internux, trading under the ‘Bolt! Super 4G’ brand, has signed up 750,000 customers in the ten months since its commercial launch in Jakarta, its CTO Devid Gubiani told the LTE Asia conference, reported by Mobile World Live. More than 90% of Bolt! broadband customers are using Mi-Fi personal hotspot devices, the executive stated, adding that average connection speeds were currently around 12.5Mbps. Following its 4Q13 launch, Bolt! covered much of Greater Jakarta and Bogor by April 2014, by which date it had already signed up around 400,000 users; it is licensed only for Greater Jakarta and neighbouring province Banten. In August 2014 Bolt! introduced Indonesia’s first two 4G LTE smartphones on an active commercial network, which retail for USD150 and USD250 (although it does not currently provide voice services directly over its network).
To deal with soaring demand (and having suffered congestion problems due to faster-than expected take-up in Q1 2014), Bolt! implemented dual-carrier technology and added another 300 base stations to an existing 1,800 cell sites in Q2, and is now concentrating on rolling out small cells. Gubiani also admitted Bolt! will soon reach the limits of its mobile broadband-only model and is preparing to launch voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) and video broadcast.
