Challenges for VPN Providers Expanding into Indonesia and how Zenlayer Can Help

Virtual private network (VPN) usage has skyrocketed in Indonesia in recent years, with 55% of residents now relying on some type of VPN service to access the internet. VPNs are more important than ever in this Southeast Asia country due to rampant cybercrime, along with tight government restrictions on social media and web content.

Considering this, Indonesia is now an attractive destination for VPN global providers.

· VPNs are legal in Indonesia, despite having a heavily censored internet.

· The country offers the third largest VPN market in the world behind China and India, along with a growing digital economy that’s on pace to reach $94.3 billion by 2025.

· Indonesia also has one of the largest online markets, with over 204 million internet users.

But like any emerging market, Indonesia has its share of challenges. Read on to learn some common barriers facing VPN providers in this emerging economy, and how Zenlayer can help overcome them.

Top Challenges for VPN Providers Serving Users in Indonesia

Limited access to infrastructure

Indonesia is an emerging market with underdeveloped telecommunications infrastructure. As a result, it can be difficult for service providers to ensure fast and reliable VPNs. This is a problem when considering that customers in Indonesia increasingly expect speedy digital services — especially when accessing gaming content and streaming video which are sensitive to latency. In addition, the country’s limited infrastructure makes it difficult and expensive to scale in Indonesia.

Security and privacy threats

Southeast Asia is a hotbed for cybercrime, and Indonesia is no exception. The country experienced almost 1 billion cyberattacks in 2022, and about 1.6 billion in 2021. Due to heightened cybersecurity risks, VPN providers must go above and beyond to protect connections from threat actors.

High operating costs

VPN providers also struggle with high operating costs in Indonesia, mainly because they use overseas servers located in different geographical regions. Moving data over long distances requires additional data centers and transport services, which causes operating costs to increase.

How Zenalyer Helps VPN Providers in Indonesia

VPN providers can easily overcome infrastructure challenges, security issues, and high costs with the help of Zenlayer — the global leader for edge computing in emerging markets, with a major presence in Indonesia.

Here are some of the ways that Zenlayer helps VPN providers succeed in Indonesia and in the greater Southeast Asia region.

Scale easily with a wide range of compute capabilities

Of the 280+ edge PoPs that make up our global network, more than 20 are in Indonesia covering some of largest cities like Jakarta, Medan, Surabaya, and Pekanbaru.

In these cities, Zenlayer offers a total of six availability zones — five for bare metal and one for VM — with a wide range of compute capabilities from 1 core, 2 GB RAM all the way up to dual Intel Xeon Gold 6226R Processors with a total of 32 cores and 192 GB RAM.

In addition, all Zenlayer servers can be rapidly spun up using zenConsole, which features an intuitive dashboard that makes managing and monitoring resources quick and easy.

With such a variety of compute options that are quick to deploy, you can effortlessly scale up or down, spin up test servers in key markets, or assign free user traffic to lower-core models while using higher-core models for paid users to deliver an extra smooth, premium VPN experience.

Turbo charge network performance

Zenlayer also has roughly 3 Tbps of transit to the largest ISPs in Indonesia, including Indosat and Telin. This allows users reach your VPN servers faster and more reliably with less hops.

VPN traffic out from Indonesia for content like live videos and sports streaming can be routed through our ultra-low latency global private backbone to Zenlayer’s edge PoP in Singapore, the international traffic exchange center of Asia, where it would be routed directly to various tier-1 carriers for seamless viewing.

Further, customers have the option of using Zenlayer’s cloud networking services to establish dedicated lines between Indonesia and 60+ of the top cities in the world. Because of this, premium users can bypass public networks for accelerated access to their favorite websites and content worldwide.

Access cost-effective and flexible billing options

VPN customers can choose between data transfer, flat fee, and aggregate bandwidth pricing. Zenlayer’s pay as you go model gives your business more agility to scale anywhere in the world. Standard billing is month-to-month.

Aggregate bandwidth lets you balance between overloaded and underutilized servers so that you can minimize bandwidth waste and make the most of your budget. Plus, you’ll also get 95% burstable bandwidth that gives you the flexibility to not overcommit to more expensive caps. We’ll sample your bandwidth usage over the month and take the top 5%, or peak bandwidth use, out of our calculation so that you can rest assured that unexpected traffic spikes are unlikely to lead to overage fees down the road.

Want to learn more about how Zenlayer can help your VPN business thrive in Indonesia? Check out our solution and schedule a consultation with our expert today!