Digital cordless phone service to be launched July
Digital cordless phone service to be launched July
JAKARTA (JP): PT Telepoint Nusantara, a new private telecommunications company, will launch in July its digital cordless telephone (CT-2) service, which has been labeled the second generation of the mobile telephone system.
"Telepoint, established with an investment of US$25 million, is being assisted technically by Motorola of the United States to develop CT-2's infrastructures," the company's president Romeo Sibih said after signing an agreement on equity share allocation for Kopostel, the cooperative of the Directorate General of Post and Telecommunications.
Under the agreement which was signed yesterday by Sibih and Kopostel's general manager, Daniel Purawidjaja, Telepoint is now five percent owned by Kopostel, 25 percent by Kerta Raharja (a foundation of employees from the office of the Coordinating Ministry for Political Affairs and Security affairs), 45 percent by Sibih and 25 percent by the company's managing director, Ali Chendra.
Sibih said that the company has received a technical license from the government.
He added that the company had finalized negotiations with a number of firms with outlets in the city, including Wendy's restaurants and Hammer shirt shops, where radio base stations will be installed.
Telepoint expects to attract some 60,000 subscribers in the first phase of its operation, with students, housewives, salesmen and reporters as its target market, Sibih said.
"The service, offering just local calls, will initially cover the greater Jakarta area only," he said, adding that his company will offer the CT-2 handsets through Kenwood, Motorola and AT&T.
Different from cellular phones used for two-way telecommunications, the CT-2 was developed in Britain in 1984 and is only able to make outgoing calls.
Meanwhile, Chendra said that his company will set CT-2's selling price at around Rp 950,000 and the monthly subscribing fee at Rp 30,000. Digital cellular phones in the city currently average around Rp 3 million per unit.
"Billing charges will be about Rp 160 or Rp 180 per three minutes, some 60 percent higher than the normal telephone billing charged by the state-owned telecommunications company, PT Telkom, he said.
Telepoint, he added, will pay Telkom based on the normal billing charge.
Telepoint conducted trial operations of the CT-2 using the 864-868 megahertz (Mhz) frequency span in the Jakarta Convention Center complex during the World Infrastructure forum and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum last November.(icn)