Govt's plan to reduce bandwidth hailed

Govt's plan to reduce bandwidth hailed
JP/12/phone

Governemnt's plan to
reduce bandwidth hailed
DADAN WIJAKSANA
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta

The government's plan to reduce frequency bandwidths for
certain cellular operators operating on both 900 MHz and 1800 Mhz
is expected to entice new investors to come and invest in the
country's mobile phone industry, according to an expert.

As a consequence of the plan, the government will have to
review and reevaluate existing licenses in respect of their
bandwidths.

Danny Buldansyah, engineering general manager at PT
Excelcomindo Pratama, one of the country's leading operators,
hoped that the plan would bring about healthier competition.

"Hopefully it will, because the current allocation of
frequency ranges is certainly not fair," he said on Wednesday.

He was referring to the fact that certain companies in the
industry have obtained licenses to operate with greater frequency
ranges.

"The country's three leading operators are now operating on
900 Mhz and 1800 MHz, but some operators have more bandwidth than
others," he added.

To date, the government has granted PT Telkom and PT Indosat
the right to manage a total range of frequencies of up to 30 MHz.

There are now five companies operating on 900 Mhz and 1800
MHz, namely PT Telkomsel, PT TelkoMobile, PT Satelindo, PT
Indonesian Satellite (IM3) and PT Excelcomindo.

Telkomsel and TelkoMobile are subsidiaries of PT Telkom, while
Satelindo and IM3 belong to PT Indosat.

According to Danny, his company has licenses to operate on 900
MHz and 1800 MHz with a total of 15 MHz bandwidth. "That 15 MHz
bandwidth is more than enough for us. That amount should be
enough for others too."

Komarudin S.K, Telkom's operations and marketing director, did
not object to the plan as long as the government could guarantee
and fulfill the frequency capacity needs of the operators.

He also shared Danny's opinion that 15 MHz was an appropriate
bandwidth for a cellular operator.

By the end of the year, the number of mobile users in the
country is expected to reach 5.1 million.

Telkomsel is the biggest operator with some 2.5 million
customers throughout the country.