ACeS eyes ties with ASEAN companies

ACeS eyes ties with ASEAN companies

JAKARTA (JP): ASEAN telecommunications firm PT Asia Cellular
Satellite (ACeS) is inviting other ASEAN companies to join it in
developing Asia's most cost-efficient satellite-based
telecommunications system.

The president of ACeS. Adi R. Adiwoso, said the company would
introduce a region-wide cellular mobile telecommunications system
next year by operating a geo-stationary satellite called Garuda.

"Satellites today can provide video service direct to
subscribers using an affordable station at home," Adi told the
first ASEAN business summit here yesterday.

"But soon, in the next few years, these services will grow to
include handheld mobile and fixed phones capable of having voice,
data broadband as well as multi-media," he said.

ACeS's will operate digital telecommunications using four
Garuda geo-stationary satellites.

The company's first satellite, manufactured by American
defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corporation, is scheduled to
be launched in July or August next year.

ACeS's project will allow anyone with a handheld phone to
communicate directly with another person carrying a similar
device within the satellite coverage area.

Adi said ACeS' satellite-based telecommunications technology
would reduce call costs to less than 25 US cents a minute.

The satellite's coverage will reach Papua New Guinea to the
East, Pakistan to the West, the Korean peninsula to the North and
Indonesia to the South. With China and India under its coverage,
the satellite will cover over 3 billion people.

"The system is the most cost efficient and we are hoping it
will be the first of its kind in the world," Adi said.

"Before the end of the millennium Asia will have a mobile
system that will give better coverage than the current technology
in North America, Europe or elsewhere, and by the Grace of God,
also the most affordable one," he said.

He said the project would cost close to US$1 billion and was
fully funded.

ACeS, set up in June 1995, is owned equally by PT Pasifik
Satelit Nusantara, the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company
and Thailand's Jasmine International Overseas Company.

"This is why ACeS is a true regional company. We also hope
that our ASEAN neighbors will join the three founders of ACeS in
the spirit of true ASEAN cooperation," Adi said.

"We do not just want to be a target market for the
globalization of the economy by a more established region," Adi
said.

"In fact, we have been courted by many entities trying to
build an equivalent system, and requested to join their efforts,
only to realize that they wished to have our hard won capital and
easy market opening and in exchange we would gain very little
control of the development of the business," he said.

He said the development of information infrastructure in Asia
had to be initiated and carried out by the region itself to be on
par with the rest of the world.

Only a handful of countries in Asia, and just a few in ASEAN,
could be considered to have adequate telecommunications
infrastructure, he said.

"Due to this shortage of information infrastructure in Asia,
especially communications infrastructure, the satellite industry
is poised to provide a major advancement," Adi said. (rid)