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)