Govt mulls issuing new license for CDMA

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)