Government to finalize phone services decree

Government to finalize phone services decree

Arya Abhiseka
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta

The government is drafting a decree that will, among other
things, oblige telephone operators to contribute to a fund for
the development of basic telephony services in more than 43,000
villages and sub-district capitals nationwide that currently lack
such services.

The regulation forms part of the implementation of the United
Service Obligation (USO) program aimed at providing phone
services for all citizens, according to Gatot Dewa Broto, a
spokesman for the Directorate General of Posts and
Telecommunications at the Ministry of Transportation.

The USO was agreed upon during the ITU conference in Nairobi,
Kenya, in 1995, when all countries were advised to provide their
citizens with basic telecommunications facilities, such as
telephone, fax and telegram services.

Furthermore, Gatot said, the Asia Pacific Telecommunications
(APT) organization at its summit in Tokyo in 2000, issued the so-
called Tokyo Declaration calling on all member countries to
provide all of their citizens with access to telecommunications
by 2005.

Currently, Indonesia has a fixed line penetration rate of
about 3 percent, meaning only about 7.82 million fixed lines are
available for more than 220 million people.

There are 43,022 villages and 870 subdistrict capitals which
still have no access to basic phone services, according to
ministry data.

Gatot said the government has targeted the provision of such
services to all villages and sub-district capitals by 2005 in
line with the Tokyo Declaration.

Aside from the contributions made by telephone operators,
funds for the USO program would be taken from the state budget
and loans, Gatot said, adding the total funding required for the
project was Rp 475 billion.

The portion of these funds to be provided by telecoms
operators was still being discussed by the team drafting the
decree, according to Gatot.

The government was committed to starting the USO program soon,
while waiting for the finalization of the decree, Gatot said.

"This year alone, we have allocated some Rp 90 billion
(US$10.1 million) from the state budget to provide basic phone
services in more than 7,500 villages," he said.

Gatot said that at the beginning, the government would handle
the development, funding, supervising and control of the USO
program with some of the expenses to be covered by the telecoms
operators after the regulation was finalized.

Next year, the government plans to expand the USO program into
more than 17,000 villages.

In 2005, the USO program will be implemented in another 18,500
villages to complete the provision of basic phone services in
every village in Indonesia.

Previously, the government, through state-owned
telecommunications company Perumtel, was the sole party
responsible for providing all citizens with basic phone services.

However, after Perumtel was privatized as PT Telkom, the
implementation of the USO has fallen into abeyance given that the
company is now a profit-oriented corporation.

The economic crisis that hit the country in the middle of 1997
further diverted Telkom's attention from the USO program.

"Prior to the crisis, the telecoms operator allocated about 20
percent of its profits to the USO program. However, now that
figure is down to about 5 percent," he said.