• High-altitude platform station (HAPS) specialist Aalto signs MoU with Indonesia’s biggest tower company
• Both commit to explore ways of extending connectivity services to the country’s rural and hard‑to-reach places with stratosphere-flying drones
• It’s another boost from Asia for UK-based Aalto, which recently received a $100m investment commitment from a consortium of Japanese companies

Mitratel, a tower and fibre infrastructure provider in Indonesia, has teamed up with Aalto HAPS, a subsidiary of European aircraft manufacturer Airbus, to "explore how to provide commercial HAPS [high-altitude platform station] solutions" in the Southeast Asia country.

The two companies have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to that end, focusing on the delivery of connectivity services to Indonesia’s so-called “3T” regions, the most far-flung and least developed areas in the sprawling archipelago.

Mitratel will put Aalto’s Zephyr-branded HAPS portfolio through its paces, which promises various applications including direct-to-device connectivity for “low-latency 5G” and earth observation services.

The solar-powered Zephyr drones, according to UK-based Aalto, can operate at heights of more than 60,000 feet (so avoiding weather turbulence and airline traffic) and apparently fly for days on end. The current flight-time record in the stratosphere is 64 days.

Mitratel CEO Theodorus Ardi Hartoko said he was confident that the Aalto collaboration “will expand existing infrastructure to improve access to affordable and effective connectivity across 3T regions”. 

Hartoko expressed optimism, too, that “an industrial and commercial pathway” could be mapped out in Indonesia for both HAPS and what he called “flying tower systems”.

Samer Halawi, Aalto’s CEO, said the company was now focused on “deepening its engagement with Mitratel to build a cohesive HAPS ecosystem in Indonesia”, and that Zephyr HAPS offered “game-changing capabilities” when it came to reducing the number of “white spots” in mobile networks. 

Neither Aalto nor Mitratel mentioned any timeframe for commercial deployment in their official announcement.

A subsidiary of PT Telkom Indonesia, the country’s largest operator, Mitratel’s assets include more than 38,000 towers and 37,000km of fibre-optic cable. It’s a fast growing company and claims to be the biggest tower company in Southeast Asia, not just in Indonesia, when measured by the number of tower units.

During the six months to 30 June 2024, Mitratel booked revenue of 4.45tn Indonesia rupiahs ($281 million), up 7.8% compared with the first half of 2023. The solid top line performance helped nudge net profit over IDR1tn ($63m). The company’s tower tenancy ratio in the first half of 2024 was 1.52x, up from 1.49x over the same period the previous year.

The Mitratel MoU comes quickly on the heels of a recent commitment from a consortium of Japanese companies to invest $100m in Aalto. The consortium is led by NTT Docomo and Space Compass Corp., together with Mizuho Bank Ltd. and the Development Bank of Japan. Aalto said at the time it was targeting a commercial launch in 2026.

- Ken Wieland, Contributing Editor, TelecomTV