Elektrindo unveils new digital exchange
Elektrindo unveils new digital exchange
JAKARTA (JP): PT Elektrindo Nusantara, a telecommunications
equipment firm affiliated with the Bimantara Group, introduced
yesterday a prototype of its new digital telephone exchange with
a nominal capacity of 5,000 lines.
Elektrindo's president, Harry Kuntoro, said that the new
product, called SENA, is the new generation of STK-1000, a 1,000-
line-capacity digital telephone exchange totally designed in
Indonesia.
"Through our research and development activities, Elektrindo
had been developing the digital telephone exchange since 1986,
when we started the STK-1000 project," he said.
STK-1000 was launched in 1992 and certified by the state-owned
domestic telecommunications operator PT Telkom in 1994, after two
years of trial operation.
According to Harry, STK-1000 is locally designed with a series
of operational studies in Indonesia, keeping in mind
international standard requirements.
The company spent some US$10 million for the digital telephone
exchange development, he said.
Meanwhile, Bimantara's chairman Bambang Trihatmodjo said
yesterday that SENA will be produced in early December.
Bambang, President Soeharto's second son, said that Elektrindo
will be ready to compete with big-scale telecommunications
suppliers, including Alcatel of France, Siemens of Germany and
NEC of Japan.
"But we also look for support from the government, by using
our products. When trying to penetrate overseas markets, we are
frequently asked whether our products are being used in Indonesia
or not."
PT Inti
In addition to Elektrindo, another digital telephone exchange
is developed by the state-owned telecommunications supplier PT
Inti.
The country's telecommunications projects, which are developed
by Telkom, are so far supplied mostly by NEC, Siemens and
Alcatel, while Inti and Elektrindo participates only in smaller-
scale projects which include rural telecommunications projects.
Minister of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications Joop Ave, who
inspected Elektrindo's headquarters yesterday, said that
Indonesian companies are actually able to produce digital
telephone exchanges if there is an opportunity.
"The Directorate General of Post and Telecommunications is
currently preparing a policy which will require any
telecommunications project to use local products and services. We
need to learn from the Japanese who completely use their own
products," he said.
"But we don't need to protect local suppliers because
protection will affect the efficiency of our own industry and may
cause it to collapse after the year of 2000, when trade and
investment are liberalized," he said.
He said that after being certified by Telkom within the next
two years, Elektrindo's products will be easily marketed locally.
(icn)