7,000 smartcard phones installed

JAKARTA (JP): In cooperation with private firms, the state- owned PT Telkom has installed 7,000 public telephones using the smartcard technology which will replace the aging magnetic system.

A PT Telekomindo executive, K.S. Paul Ong, said here yesterday that his company had been assigned to issue the smartcards in collaboration with Telkom and the state-owned mint and banknote printing company Perum Peruri.

"The government has licensed 11 firms to install, operate and maintain the public phones and Telekomindo will issue the smartcards," he said.

Meanwhile, four companies had installed 7,000 telephones in the greater Jakarta area, West Java, Central Java, East Java, Bali, Sulawesi, Jambi and Kalimantan, he said.

Other places would soon have the new facilities, he added.

"The smartcard technology will replace the magnetic system (called Tamura which is originally from Japan). The smartcards have some advantages compared to the magnetic ones which are easily cloned," he said.

He said there were 15,000 magnetic phones in Greater Jakarta. "All of them will be taken out by the end of 1999."

Some 32,000 smartcard telephone lines would be installed by the end of 1997, about 15,000 in Greater Jakarta, he said.

"Telekomindo expects to issue four million smartcards by the end of this year," he said.

He said that next month, the smartcard phones would be able to dial cellular phones as well as long distance and international calls.

"The profit margin of issuing smartcards is narrow, that's why we target cooperating with any parties to place advertisements on the cards," he said, adding that the intrinsic value of each smartcard was 72 U.S. cents. (icn)