Govt considers using CDMA for USO project

Govt considers using CDMA for USO project

Arya Abhiseka
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta

The government may apply the increasingly popular CDMA
telecommunications connection technology in its ambitious project
to provide basic telephony services in villages, according to an
official.

Gatot Dewa Broto, spokesman for the Directorate General of
Post and Telecommunications at the Ministry of Transportation,
said the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology cost
less in installing telephone lines.

"Unlike building fixed telephone lines which could cost about
US$1,000 per line, CDMA only costs no more than $200 per line,"
he told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

The government is planning to provide fixed telecommunication
lines in villages in the country through a project called
Universal Service Obligation (USO). Under the program, fixed
line telecommunications companies are required to contribute to a
fund to finance the installation of fixed lines.

The government is currently speeding up the process to connect
by 2005 some of the remaining 43,022 villages and 870 subdistrict
capitals unconnected by any form of telecommunications.

Currently, there are only 7.82 million fixed lines available
for more than 220 million people.

Gatot said that by using CDMA technology, the cost of the
project was expected to be cheaper.

In order to connect several areas, CDMA requires only the
establishment of a base transceiver station or a wireless
telecommunications device used to transmit radio frequencies over
the air interface.

However, Gatot said that CDMA had its own flaws as it required
additional costs when interconnecting with other phone systems,
among others the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) that is
currently used in Indonesia.

"Although it is cheap to establish CDMA, it will add costs
when we need to interconnect it with another system. However, we
did the math and it is still cheaper than building fixed
telephone lines, so we are considering the possibility of using
CDMA," he said.

The government is currently drafting a decree that will
regulate, among other things, telephone operators' obligation to
contribute to a fund for the USO.