Eleven ISPs to operate under Lintasarta networks

JAKARTA (JP): Data communications company PT Aplikanusa Lintasarta said on Thursday that 11 Internet service provider (ISP) companies across Indonesia would soon begin rolling out their services using a wholesale dial-up solution.

General manager for Lintasarta's value added service division, Zulfi Hadi, said that ISPs in Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang, and Yogyakarta would begin their service by the end of this week with the rest to follow sometime in August.

The ISP companies are PT Mitra Lama Link in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan; PT Danta Ikasetya Utama, PT Suryaniaga Lokalestari, and PT Media Utama Intikom in Bandung, West Java; PT Microsmart Solusi Informasi in Batam, Riau; PT AVLens Komunika Utama, PT Prestasi Cipta Pertiwi (Precision), and PT Bidik Dot Com in Jakarta; PT Masindo in Medan, North Sumatra; PT Maltindo Agungutama in Semarang, Central Java; and PT Kaledia Komputer in Yogyakarta.

Initially launched during the telecommunications expo IITELMIT 2001 in May, the Internet wholesale dial-up was designed to help new ISP companies especially those without strong financial backing, Zulfi said.

"The companies outsource their service infrastructure with us so that they can begin their business without investing a large sum of money," he said in a media conference here.

Lintasarta's wholesale dial-up solution provides everything an ISP company needs including domestic and international bandwidth, network maintenance and network operation center, he said.

"Besides ISP companies, the service can also be used for companies' intranet and extranet," Zulfi added.

A company only needs to provide the office space, telephone lines, administration, marketing and first level technical support, he said, adding that by outsourcing with Lintasarta an ISP company could save more than 80 percent in investment costs compared to investing in all the equipment themselves.

"To start an ISP, a company would only need an average of Rp 50 million (about US$5,000) in investment," Zulfi said, explaining that without the outsource solution a company would have to invest about $150,000 for the hardware and an additional $50,000 a month for data transmissions.

Lintasarta charges between Rp 70,000 ($7) to Rp 80,000 per user identification per month, Zulfi said, explaining that a company must order at least 50 user IDs for the first roll out.

A user ID is a unique account signature of an Internet user, sometimes used in an e-mail address.

How many user IDs a company can provide depends on the maximum capacity of the region in which it operates, Zulfi said, citing Bandung as an example which could only service 5,000 user IDs.

A company must set a target of how many users it could service within a year, if it fails to meet the target then the excess is given to another company, he said.

Zulfi said that he hoped the outsourcing method would help accelerate the growth of ISPs and the spread of Internet use in the country. (tnt)