Govt approves local switching exchanges
SENTUL, West Java (JP): The government has approved a telephone switching exchange produced by PT Elektrindo Nusantara, making it the fourth "official" product in Indonesia.
It will also make Elektrindo the fourth official supplier of switching exchanges after Siemens of Germany, NEC of Japan and AT&T (now Lucent) of the United States.
Minister of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications Joop Ave said here Thursday that the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) had approved the switching, called SENA, of Elektrindo after finding that the product was technologically acceptable.
"Any new technology to be applied in Indonesia must be assessed by BPPT. Before approving SENA, the board's chairman B.J. Habibie just had one question, the technology recourse base of the product which is wholly Indonesian," he said after inaugurating new telecommunications infrastructure installed by the state-owned PT Telkom in Greater Jakarta.
In 1989, three companies, Siemens of Germany, NEC of Japan and AT&T (now Lucent) of the United States, were selected to carry out digital-telephone projects in Indonesia through a tender overseen by BPPT chaired by Habibie who is also state minister of research and technology.
The three companies have since become the country's suppliers of Telkom which cut its 12 different central switching exchanges to just three.
NEC set up a partnership with the Humpuss Group, which is run by President Soeharto's youngest son Hutomo Mandala Putra, while AT&T tied up with a company jointly owned by the President's eldest daughter Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana and S.A. Habibie, a younger brother of Minister Habibie. Siemens continues its partnership with the state-owned telecommunications equipment maker PT Inti which is also chaired by Habibie.
A partnership with a local company is a prerequisite for foreign companies to operate in the telecommunications sector.
"The government does not have to amend any regulation or make a new one as SENA has just added the new accepted switching," Joop said.
Telkom's telecommunications facilities inaugurated Thursday included telephone centers with 608,488 lines and local networks with 751,578 lines and 66,160 canal transmissions. Some of the facilities use Elektrindo's products.
Elektrindo, which produces the digital central switching exchange SENA, is a telecommunications equipment firm affiliated to the Bimantara Group. The group is controlled by Bambang Trihatmodjo, a son of President Soeharto.
SENA is the new generation of STK-1000, which has a capacity of 1,000 telephone lines. SENA's capacity is 5,000 lines.
Both SENA and STK-1000, which are domestically designed, already meet quality standards set by the Geneva-based International Telecommunications Union.
SENA is an expansion of STK-1000, which had a capacity of 1,000 telephone lines.
Suryatin Setiawan, head of Telkom's research and technology department, said the switching had been developed to be compatible with Telkom's network.
"Elektrindo and Telkom have jointly developed the switching to result in a qualified domestic product."
Elektrindo has spent between US$6 million and $9 million in developing SENA, according to the company's business development manager Tjahja Tjugiarto.
The company plans to improve the switching exchanges to have higher capacity to compete with foreign products which are now able to provide hundreds of lines, he said. (icn)