Govt mulls issuing new license for CDMA

JAKARTA (JP): Cellular companies hoping to operate under the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) system at 450 megahertz may still have a chance as the government is looking into the possibility of giving licenses to more than one operator.

A senior official at the Directorate General of Post and Telecommunications, Rachmat Widayana, said on Monday that the government was currently studying the nature of the CDMA-450 system to find out exactly how many operators it could support.

"What we want is of course to enable more than one cellular company to operate the system, and not create a monopoly," the division head for rates, cooperation and licensing said in a media briefing here.

Rachmat added that while the cellular system was being studied, the government would give priority to existing operators who were ready to move to the CDMA-450 system.

Currently only PT Mobile Selular Indonesia (Mobisel) has received an operating license for the CDMA-450 that it had begun implementing alongside its older system, the Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) system.

Mobisel earlier said that it had allocated US$200 million to gradually phase out the NMT system and operate fully with the CDMA-450.

Another cellular company, PT Telselindo Nusantara, was also interested in an operating license for the CDMA-450 but had repeatedly been fobbed off by the government.

Telselindo's director of operations Muslim Mahmud said earlier that the company was ready if the government wanted to tender the frequency license.

Telselindo, together with British partner Inquam Limited, had originally planned to operate cellular services based on the CDMA network at the 450 megahertz frequency beginning next year.

CDMA is one of two digital cellular technologies available today. the other is the Global System for Mobile CommunicationS (GSM) which is used by PT Telkomsel, PT Satelindo, and PT Excelcomindo Pratama.

Other technologies include the analog NMT and Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS) implemented in Indonesia by Telesera, Metrosel, and Komselindo. The analog system had gradually been phased out by the more advanced digital system.

Komselindo had also begun its migration to the CDMA system, and operating on the 800 Megahertz.(tnt)