So you have arrived on Bali and probably one of your first questions is “how do I get mobile internet!” on my phone. Well let me help you sort that out!
The good news is that mobile internet/data on Bali is cheap. Follow this guide and for as little as 75.000 IDR (5 Euro / 5,5 USD) you will have 4 Gb of high speed 4G internet for a month. Enough make all your friends and followers back home jealous of your latest adventures! Or to keep your business and projects going while you are working with your feet in the sand and a cold Bintang in your hand.
But first ask yourself do you need mobile internet? If you come on holiday it might be nice to go offline for a while… On Bali Wifi is readily available in hotels, restaurants and bars. So even if you would like to be disconnected from it all, there are still enough possibilities to go online if needed.
To get mobile internet access with a local provider you will of course need an unlocked phone. And if you’re reading this you are most likely a visitor to Bali so we’ll focus on pre-paid plans.
Mobile operators
The main mobile operators in Indonesia are:
Indosat
You will see their mobile SIM card often sold under the ‘IM3’ branding.
XL Axiata
XL Axiata offers their mobile service SIM card often under the ‘XL Baru’ branding.
Telkomsel
The SIM cards from Telkomsel are offered under the ‘simPATI’, ‘Kartu As’ and ‘Loop’ branding. The most used is the main ‘simPATI’ brand and offers the highest internet speeds. They also have a post paid product known as ‘Kartu Halo’ which is harder if not impossible to get for visitors.
Telkomsel is usually slightly higher priced than the other providers but offers better coverage especially in less populated areas of Indonesia. The pricing model of Telkomsel is divided into 12 different geographical zones with Bali being in the cheapest zone.
There are also a few smaller operators like Tri and Smartfren.
Coverage
In Bali, as in most populated/urban areas of Indonesia, most of the providers will have good mobile phone coverage. Telkomsel has the largest number of subscribers and has the best coverage in also the more remote areas of Indonesia. This is especially important if you are considering traveling further around Indonesia.
The mobile internet coverage can be different than basic mobile (phone & text) coverage. On Bali itself and the Gili and Lembongan islands you will have 3G internet coverage in most more populated/urban areas. The internet speed can be less in some of the remote parts. Sometimes the internet connection will drop back to slower methods like Edge or GPRS. You can try a map by a crowd-sourced service like OpenSignal or Sensorly to see what coverage is available where you are planning to go.
High-speed 4G internet coverage is currently only available in the south area of Bali. The map below shows in pink the Telkomsel and in purple the Indosat 4G coverage as published by the providers per July 2016.
As long as you stay in Bali all providers will give you good coverage, especially in the more populated/urban area, However due to the best overall coverage I would recommend using Telkomsel. The rest of this post will cover the Telkomsel service only.
Where to buy
As soon as you leave customs on arrival at Bali airport you will find a Telkomsel booth in the arrivals hall. In my opinion the prices here tend to be quite a bit higher than normal. So I would only recommend this if you are in a hurry.
You will also find enough cell phone shops in the main tourist streets and shops. Again I found that these generally overcharge for the cost of the SIM card and internet packages.
My recommendation is to go into some of the smaller streets and find a more ‘local’ shop. You can easily recognize them by banners and other branding. Your (taxi) driver can also most likely find a good place to get it all sorted. I would also recommend just buying a basic SIM card and purchasing some credit for it (100.000 IDR or so) and sort out internet yourself. It is very easy to do and ensures you get the package you want at the normal price.
SIM card & activation
Most Telkomsel SIM cards sold now are the newer 4G cards as identified on the cover. These SIM cards are pre-cut into normal, micro and nano format so suitable for all phones.
The fair price of a SIM card will be anywhere around 10.000 to 40.000 IDR (0,60 to 2,60 Euro) depending on the shops pricing. There is usually a small amount of credit on it, like 10.000 IDR. Also sometimes you will pay more if it is a ‘good’ (easy) number. For instance in the photo below the ‘good’ numbers are 5.000 IDR more. Also you can see a shop closer to the main tourist street charges 35.000 IDR for the Telkomsel SIM card and one a bit further away only 25.000 IDR.
Once you have purchased the card, the salesperson will help you put it in your phone and activate the SIM card with the network. Of course be sure your phone is unlocked so it can be used with other providers.
Internet
You can easily activate an internet package on your phone. Just dial *363# and you will get a menu with several options you can follow. It will all be in Bahasa Indonesia but it is quite easy to see what the packages are. Look for the ‘FLASH’ menu options. The *363# menu per July 2016:
Some key words for the menu:
ribu/rb = means 1.000. So 49 rb means 49.000 IDR.
hari = day
minggu = week
bulan = month
The Telkomsel website has a full overview of the available packages. Look under the ‘Paket Flash 4G LTE’ header for the internet packages.
Internet promo offers
Currently (July 2016) I found the best offers are accessed by dialing *363*46# or *363*300#.
*363*300#
1,5 Gb for 40.000 IDR
4 Gb for 70.000 IDR
*363*46#
4 Gb for 49.000 IDR
16 Gb for 99.000 IDR
Unfortunately I have not been able to find out what the differences in these promos are. It might have to do with the Telkomsel regional pricing zones. Or it might be a time based usage policy (for instance higher speed or more data at night time). I have been using the *363*46# 4 Gb offer since I’ve arrived in Bali and it has been working perfectly fine.
Internet settings
The following settings should be set automatically if you put the Telkomsel SIM card in your device. However if you have any problems check these settings in your phone.
Mobile Data / Personal Hotspot
APN: internet
Username: leave empty/none
Password: leave empty/none
MMS
APN: mms
Username: wap
Password: wap123
MMSC: http://mms.telkomsel.com
MMS Proxy: 10.1.89.150:8000
MMS Max Message Size: 307200
Calling & text messaging
For calling and text messaging there are also various packages available. These can be accessed by dialing *999# on your phone and follow the menu options. My call and text usage is quite limited as everybody here seems to use internet messaging services like Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger. Therefore I just pay ‘on the go’ for local calling and text messaging. The costs for this are very reasonable.
If you want a combination of data and local voice/text, there is the following for 150.000 IDR (July 2016). This package can be activated through *363#, select option ‘Flash 4G LTE’ and then ‘Paket Bulanan’.
With Telkomsel by dialing 01017, 01018 or 01019 before your country code you can get cheaper rates for overseas calling. Dial as follow for example 01017:
01017 + country code + phone number
The rates page also has the country code (‘Kode Negara’)
Other information
By dialing *888# you can get your credit balance, and with *889# your remaining internet data on your package, You can also install the ‘My Telkomsel’ app on your smartphone (iPhone, Android, Windows Phone and Blackberry) to see your credit balance, and the remaining quotas of internet, voice and text messaging package. Through the app you can also activate some data/voice/text packages although this seems a smaller selection than can be accessed with the *363# and *999# menus.
Also as you charge your phone with credit, you will get points (POIN). You can exchange these points for services including Telkomsel voice and internet packages. Dial *999# and select the POIN menu item.
Share your experience!
If you have any tips or experiences about mobile internet in Bali, please share your information using the comments. Thanks!
Menno has had the travel bug ever since spending his childhood in the tropics. In 2013 he left his office career and is now diving and sailing the world.
He enjoys sharing the beautiful underwater world and exploring remote islands. He gets his kicks when he can help fellow travelers have an amazing life-changing experience.
Thanks for this very useful info. If u choose a package from the *363# and *999# menus, how do u pay for it? Put in ur credit card details , or at pulsa recharge shop?
Hi Sasha, you can add your creditcard details via the ‘My Telkomsel’ app to add credit. I find easiest is to just go to a shop/warung to buy pulsa/credit. Thanks for your comments!
Hi,
Thanks for the great advice. Much appreciated.
I have a locked phone and unlocked iPad. I just want data on the iPad. Considering I can’t dial *363# on the iPad, can I organise the data packages on the app?
Thanks
Paul
Hi Paul, thanks for your nice words!
Yes you can just activate data packages using the Telkomsel app. Is it available for iPad? Have no iPad myself ;-). Of course you need to have credit attached to your Telkomsel phone number but that can be done in any phone shop.
As mentioned in the post, I believe the app does not give you the full range of available packages. It still has a decent selection of specials, you can usually find these under ‘Browse Packages’ and then the ‘Hot Offers’ sub menu. Right now I see offers for 10 Gb data + 10 Gb for movies using the VIU of HOOQ app for 119.000 IDR, roughly 8 EUR.
Cheers,
Menno
Thanks for the useful information! Do you know if all these operators offer international calls, and if yes is it expensive? I will need to make some calls to Europe for work… Thanks!
Hi Thomas, glad to have helped you out! Yes they will offer international calls, and they also have some prefixes you can use to get discounted rates. On this page you can see the prefixes and rates.
Unfortunately my Bahasa is not good enough to figure out how it will exactly work, but any friendly local phone shop should be able to help you out.
I myself mainly used Skype (with Skype-out and some credit), Facetime and Whatsapp to make my calls.
Have fun in Indonesia!
Thank you so much 🙂
Hi Menno
Thanks for the info. I got a sim card in Jakarta two weeks ago (Telkomsel).
Yesterday I flew to Bali from Yogyakarta but it doesn’t work here anymore. The mytelkomsel app indicates I have still 1.77 gb of data. Any ideas?
Hi Robert,
glad to help out. Most likely this is due either one of two reasons:
a) You have a 4G/LTE package only, so 3G or Edge data is outside of your bundle. Unlike Europe/US it seems you can’t use the 4G data allowance for slower data connections for some bundles.
b) The bundle you have is a local data package. Telkomsel (and others I believe) divide the country in regions, and some special offer bundles work only in the region where you activated it.
Best to check what *889# also says about your available data.
I lived in a few places in Indonesia, but never moved directly between those places so have no experience with going with an active bundle from one place to another.
Let me know how it works out for you!
hi, thanks you very much for your infos.
i have a question is it to buy this sim card and use both in ipad/iphone?or i saw this product “Multi SIM Kontrol simPATI” is it possible to i buy this multi sim only& then to top up like you’d describe.
thanks you
Hi Loulou,
thanks for your question. This is a pretty new product and looks cool. I’m not living in Indonesia anymore (now in the Caribbean) so I’m not personally familiar with this SIM card.
From reading up on the site it looks like you have one ‘master’ SIM card to which you can add ‘child’ SIM cards. From what I understand you can add an already existing SIM card to the ‘master’ which is the new SIM card you have to buy.
So in your case you can buy a regular SIM card for say your iPad, and a ‘master’ SIM for the iPhone. You then register the ‘child’ with the ‘master’. From then on you can control the ‘child’ (top up etc) from the master.
Hi Menno, I am visiting Bali soon and I read somewhere that I can buy a sim and activate internet e.g. For 2 weeks. Is the info given above referring to the same or is the 4gb you are referring to the total amount of data I will receive when activating it?
Regards,
Isobel
Hi Isobel, thanks for your comment! When you buy just a SIM card (what I would recommend) there would be no data on it, at best a few 100 Mb’s as a starter. You would need to add credit to your card, and then purchase the data package of your choosing. All pretty easy, credit (pulsa) you can buy at any cornerstore shop, and activating a package can be done using the menu or the Telkomsel app.
I’ve also heard the Traveloka site and app being recommend to online buy credit or data packages, but have no experience of that myself (I left Bali about a year ago and am currently living in the Caribbean). Let me know if you try that!
The reason I recommend buying just a SIM card and credit, and arranging data yourself is to avoid being ripped off. The vendors usually offer tourists a SIM + data, but might charge you anywhere from 200.000 to 500.000 IDR for a package that costs 75.000 IDR normally.
Have fun in Bali!
Many thanks Menno for the informative article, this gave me a great idea about the mobile service providers in Bali.
Going today to Bali 🙂