Govt launches rural phone line project
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government officially launched on Thursday the initial stage of a Rp 475 billion (US$528 million) telecommunications project aimed at 72,000 villages across the country.
Minister of Communications Agum Gumelar said he expected that by the end of 2005 those villages would already have access to telecommunications.
The initial project will cover 3,010 villages across the country, and involve the collaboration of two private sector telecommunications companies, PT Pasifik Satelit Nusantara (PSN) and PT Citra Sari Makmur (CSM).
PSN will install telecommunications facilities in 2,975 villages, while CSM will do so in 35 villages. While the former will use Portable Fixed Satellite (PFS) technology, the latter will use Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) technology.
The project -- which was first announced on Aug. 19, 2003 -- is part of the implementation of the Universal Service Obligation (USO) program aimed at providing phone services for all citizens.
The USO program was agreed during the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) conference in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1995, when all countries were urged to provide their citizens with basic telecommunications facilities, such as telephone, fax and telegram services.
Furthermore, the Asia-Pacific Telecommunications (APT) organization at its summit in Tokyo in 2000 issued the Tokyo Declaration calling on each member country, including Indonesia, to provide all of their citizens with access to telecommunications by 2005.
The fixed-line telephone density in Indonesia is only about 6 percent out of the country's 220 million population.
To ensure the project achieves its goal, the government expects all telephone operators to donate 0.75 percent of their annual revenues to the USO project. In concrete terms, the government expects to gain some Rp 250 billion (US$27.8 million) from them to fund the initial stage of the project.
"We will soon issue a ministerial decree to require the telephone operators to make the donations," said Agum.
The government itself has allocated Rp 45 billion from the state budget for the initial stage of the project.
Under the USO project, PSN and CSM will sell the telecoms facility using a package called PASTI (which is an acronym for build your own telephone), which consists of an antenna, a mains box, a SIM card, a handset, a phone rate counter and a stabilizer.
"The charge will be the same as the fixed-line telephone rate, only this will work on a pre-paid basis," Antara quoted a government official as saying.
The starter pack will be priced at Rp 750,000, with different reload vouchers priced at Rp 100,000, Rp 200,000 and Rp 500,000.
The telecoms facility -- with phone numbers starting with 0868 -- will be able to be linked up in various situations as it employs satellite technology, the official said.