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)