BACKGROUND

Since long ago the Indonesian Government has faced problems in disaster-response communication in remote areas, from using radio communication equipment to making use of digital communication through cellular phones.

The Government needs the active role of the public to help relay situation information so that it can quickly anticipate, prevent, mitigate and/or handle emergencies, whether disaster emergencies or security emergencies.

To bring in the role of the public, the Government often relies on the two official radio organizations in Indonesia (RAPI and ORARI) to help monitor the whole situation in an emergency. These two organizations are expected to deliver the latest situation reports that can be received by all personnel of the relevant disaster/security emergency response teams, and ideally by the whole community, to anticipate a larger emergency.

For mass communication in facing disaster and security emergencies, the government and the two Indonesian radio organizations have spent very large budgets, but the results have not been optimal, because the facilities and equipment needed to provide such communication are quite expensive and costly to maintain, and are limited to officers and active members of the radio organizations, not reaching the whole community in the emergency area.

To overcome communication constraints and widen the circle of people who can help the government, a massive communication system is needed that can be used by all government personnel and, at the same time, by all layers of society in an emergency.

DMRID (the Indonesian DMR Network), through K2PI (Indonesian Portable Communication Community), dedicates a communication technology and system that can be used by all layers of society and all government personnel, with an organized user identification system that already covers areas across Indonesia.

Using this system does not require expensive special equipment such as radio base stations (RIG) or RPUs that are vulnerable to lightning or storms. Besides conventional radio equipment, in an emergency the Indonesian DMR network can be used with existing equipment such as Android cellular phones, laptops or PCs connected to the conventional radio networks that are already in common use.