Regional governments enter cellular business<\/p>\n
Dewi Santoso, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Three provincial and five regental administrations have agreed
\nto join telecommunications firm PT Indonesian Satellite
\nCorporation (Indosat) to launch Star One, the company's new fixed
\nwireless service, by the end of this year.<\/p>\n
The provincial administrations are Bali, Central Java and
\nYogyakarta.<\/p>\n
The regental administrations are Kulonprogo, Bantul,
\nGunungkidul, Sleman and the municipal administration of
\nYogyakarta.<\/p>\n
Indosat president Widya Purnama said that the administrations
\nabove would invest in the construction of fixed wireless lines in
\ntheir respective territories.<\/p>\n
A total of 500,000 fixed wireless lines will be built in the
\nprovinces and regencies, with construction expected to be
\ncompleted by the end of this year.<\/p>\n
The ventures are based on a revenue-sharing scheme, but Widya
\ndeclined to detail the amount of shares owned by each of the
\nprovinces and regencies in the ventures.<\/p>\n
Under the project, each administration will be required to
\nopen an escrow account and deposit 25 percent of the total
\nproject costs as a \"sign of each administration's commitment to
\nthe project\".<\/p>\n
Widya declined to disclose the total cost of the project. He
\ndid, however, explain earlier that setup costs would reach US$70
\nper line.<\/p>\n
The project will complete Indosat's initial plan to establish
\nat least one million fixed wireless lines, as the company
\nannounced on Tuesday that it would offer the first 500,000 lines
\nby the end of May, including 300,000 in Greater Jakarta and
\n200,000 in East Java.<\/p>\n
According to Widya, the projects in Greater Jakarta and East
\nJava cost $40 million, with funding taken from the company's cash
\nreserves.<\/p>\n
He claimed that the cost was lower than that of Telkom Flexi,
\na popular brand from state-owned PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia
\n(Telkom), as Indosat used a fixed wireless network, made in
\nChina, based on code division multiple access (CDMA) technology.<\/p>\n
Indosat has been aggressively trying to focus on its cellular
\nservices, which accounted for approximately 60 percent of its Rp
\n8 trillion ($941.18 million) in annual revenue last year.<\/p>\n
Telkom Flexi is seen as a threat by most cellular providers of
\nglobal system for mobile communications (GSM) services, as it
\nprovides cellular services but charges customers at fixed-line
\nrates.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/regional-governments-enter-cellular-business-1447893297",
"image": ""
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