Electrindo and Alcatel form international joint venture

Electrindo and Alcatel form international joint venture

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian telecommunications firm PT Elektrindo
Nusantara has set up an international joint venture to install
and maintain underwater cables.

Elektrindo, an arm of the Bimantara group, has tied up with
France's Alcatel Submarine Network and Japanese trading house
Tomen Co.

Alcatel Submarine is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Alcatel
Alsthom, a manufacturer and supplier of underwater
telecommunications systems.

Elektrindo president director Harry Kuntoro said the joint
venture, PT Nusantara Submarine Cable Service, was the first firm
in Indonesia to engage in underwater cable maintenance.

The joint venture was agreed on in Paris last December.

It is 52 percent owned by Alcatel Submarine, 43 percent by
Elektrindo and 5 percent by Tomen Co.

Elektrindo and Tomen cooperated to install underwater cables
in the 1980s in Indonesia but not been active for a long time, he
said.

Harry said he was optimistic about the firm's prospects
because Indonesia planned to lay a large submarine
telecommunications network, and there was currently only one
maintenance service operating in South East Asia.

This service, South East Asia In Ocean Cable Maintenance, is
partially owned by state-owned telecommunication firms PT Indosat
and PT Telkom, had only two vessels to maintain the region's
underwater cables, Harry said.

He said Nusantara Submarine would not buy vessels but charter
them.

A vessel designed for laying and maintaining underwater cables
costs US$40 million, while the charter fee for a vessel was
between $50,000 and $100,000 a day, he said.

The joint venture will spend $5 million setting up facilities
throughout Indonesia and would spend more for the operation.

The facilities will first be operated with some foreign
technicians but Alcatel has agreed that Indonesian technicians
will replace them in three years.

The firm planned to bid jointly for the Telkom's project to
lay 2,000 kilometer cables between Ambon and Jayapura. (jsk)