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Telephones and mobile phones

Telkom is the suppliers for land lines, but not very many private homes ever bothered as it was expensive and unreliable in the past, and mobile phones are far better, easier and cheaper now.
Getting a land line can be seriously hard work, and pointless for most people.

Mobile phones are a different story.
There are mobile phone shops everywhere, literally hundreds in every town, commonly with several on every larger street.
Shopping centres commonly have 10 or more shops, all selling contract free, unlocked phones.
Some suppliers sell locked contract phones, but I'm less than sure I'd ever bother with one.

There are many SIM card/airtime suppliers in Indonesia.

Telkomsel have a very wide coverage, working everywhere I've ever been, but I scrapped them because of the massive level of spam SMS messages they sent.
It got sick of it, so I got rid of them.

XL and Indosat are probably next on the list for coverage, but they also send a load of spam (as of last time I used them), and one company ripped me off with scam, charged SMS messages they claimed I'd signed up for.
As luck would have it, they did it to a government minister at the same time, so got dragged over the coals.
They refunded my money.


Many operators were implicated in this theft.

On Lukereg's advice, I tried the 3 network's 'always on' deal.
You pay Rp50,000 per year for the card, then add credit and internet quota as you require.
Unlike most operators, the credit and quota have no time limit, lasting until the card expires (if not renewed), or until used up.
The signal is a bit on and off in the countryside, but works well in the cities. Their internet service varies in speed, but I can usually use skype without serious problems.

All operators have an internet service, and all are getting better and faster since the Bolt network opened up in this country. Their service is very fast, but can be expensive if you're into streaming. For general surfing, emails, and basic stuff, Rp29,000/month gets you 1 gb of data, all delivered at fast speeds.
As with other networks, they have a range of WiFi units, ranging from the small and portable to the in house mains powered devices. I use a Bolt fro when I'm out with a laptop, and I'm very pleased with it.
However, the service area is limited, so check before you buy.

Indonesia has "Internet sehat" (healthy internet), so a lot of porn sites are blocked.
Sadly, some political sites get hammered as well, so it can limit the users ability to search for political titbits,if that's your interest. That's not to suggest Indonesia has general political censorship, these sites might very well have porn or extreme violence as well.

get a good internet network, and use Whatsup on your cellphones via WIFi free calls, landlines very expensive and hard to get by.

If the goal is calls 'within' Indonesia, just get a SIM from any of the multitude of suppliers and top up your PULSA (air time). If the goal is to call back home to the US or Canada (and I can only speak to these) I use any of several iPhone/iPad APPS (which I hesitate to name) over a wireless connection (WiFi). You can use an Apple APP that not only lets you talk, but also see the 'face' of the person you are talking to. There are also 'message' APPS that allow you to talk to the individual you are messaging.  I suggest all of these be set up and used in your home country before making your trip to the Island of the Gods.

We decided not to get a landline.

We have Telkomsel for our mobile phones, my husband has more options since his company pays for his.  My son and I signed up for 3G since much of Jakarta only offers 3G.  My husband has 4G and additional data.  I have heard of dialing a particular number in order to make long distance calls for a discount, but we don't use that.  Like the earlier poster said, you get hit with a lot of direct marketing spam, but I find that only happens when I go to the mall....all the deals from ColdStone, or KFC suddenly hit my phone.  A couple times I have taken advantage of those deals, but they don't seem to hit my mobile until I get close to the mall, so I suddenly might get 3 messages. 

To call long distance, we use WhatsApp on our cell phones.  It's FREE!  Download the app on your mobile phone to call, chat, or send pictures.  We also use Skype, also FREE.  We have never paid for a long distance call from Indonesia.

If you can convince people back home to use line, the video quality is pretty good a d free line to line contacts. It plays nicer than Skype for me at least.

BUDGET:  for me I pay less than 100,000 IRP a month, I just moved here so am not making tons of calls except to my husband and son and a couple friends.  We have WiFi in our house, so at first I did not sign up for data on my mobile.   Then I decided it was necessary, but I rarely use it outside of our house.  When I shop at Hero, there is a place where you can purchase 'top up' cards to refill your phone, they will even show you how to do it (or do it for you) and how to check your balance.  My son uses his phone a lot outside the house, so he probably is using more than me, he just loaded his phone with 300,000 IRP.  We purchased a bunch of those 'top up' cards to use as we need them.  The place inside Heros only had 50,000 IRP denominations, wish they had larger ones. 

SPAM: Telkomsel seems to be the worst offender, I'm always getting messages from them.  Wish there was a way to turn off their messages....if anybody knows how, let me know.

Also, even though the WIFI is centrally located in our house, sometimes the connection is bad, or gets dropped.  So when making a call, or using my iPad, I often have to move around.  WhatsApp can be a bit frustrating, sometimes the call gets dropped every 5 minutes, sometimes I hear an echo, other times it is perfect, so there is no rhyme or reason as far as I can tell.  I just remind myself that I am in Indonesia where things never work as they should.  (I lived here 20 years ago, and cordless landline phones were available.  The whole housing complex had issues with the landline phone service, so we kept 10% of the housing rent payment until they fixed the phones for the complex.  After that, it worked as well as you can expect in Indonesia.)

Can anybody suggest for a good simcard for internet to use data?
Which operator is batter to use data or to make a international phone calls?

can also use tango lets you make free vidio calls and text and send pictures

yup telcom spam cannot be blocked I tried it, just stay via wifi with whatsup and Skype, and you will be fine, this is Indonesia, not US or Europe, where everthing work pretty good, but you pay also more for the services, sofar if making " some " calls , I think we pretty blessed with services here.

There are several VOIP apps available.

I use skype for most of my international calls, but use watsapp for most SMS and many internal calls.
As I'm still using 3's always on deal, it works out pretty cheap.
BBM is available, but seems to have pretty much died a death since other apps came along.

I have line, but it isn't popular amongst my circle of friends, so it hardly gets used.
Tango worked, but I had only one contact, and they also had watsapp, so I didn't reinstall on my new phone.

Contract mobile phone are available here, but there is generally little or no advantage over pay as you go.
Most mobiles (cellphones) are bought unlocked and without a SIM card, so can be used on a selection of networks.
You can top up your phone in millions of places (literally). Every street has a phone top up place, either selling electronic 'pulsa' (credit) from their own phones (They usually add Rp1,000 for the service), to every mini mart who commonly have a machine in the shop that gives you a receipt you take to the counter. The top up arrives in a few seconds, and off you go.

One note of worth - if you top up from another mobile, the active period does not get any longer, but top up by voucher or a shop's machine increases the active life.