House to push for 3G technology rights for Telkom/Telkomsel
Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Throwing its weight behind the country's leading cellular operator Telkomsel, which hopes to establish third-generation (3G) technology here, the House of Representatives will summon government officials in charge of licensing the technology.
After a hearing with state telecommunications firm PT Telkom and its subsidiary Telkomsel on Tuesday, the House decided to summon the directorate general of post and telecommunications and the Telecommunications Regulatory Body (BRTI) to get a clear explanation as to why there was such a dearth of development of 3G services in the country.
"Commission V supports the development of 3G by Telkom," said vice chairman of the House's Commission V on transportation and telecommunications. Erman Suparno, when concluding the hearing.
"We urge the government to allocate a frequency for Telkom, subsequent to the license already issued," he said.
The 3G technology, a far more advanced level of the current 2G technology, offers fast data transfer and substantially enhanced quality. It enables real-time video streaming, video conferencing through cellular phones and many other services.
Cellular phone manufacturers are already racing to release new products compatible with 3G.
Telkomsel was granted a license to run a 3G-based radio network in October last year, but it is yet to get a frequency bandwidth slot as a means to transmit data.
"Up to now, the frequency spectrum allocation (for us) is unclear," Telkom president Kristiono said during the hearing with the House.
"Meanwhile other operators got an extremely wide spectrum so easily (before)," he added.
The government has already granted 3G licenses and allocated frequency spectrums to PT Cyber Access Communications (CAC) in October 2003 and PT Natrindo Telepon Seluler/Lippo Telecom.
However, none of them have begun operating 3G technology.
As the bandwidth slots have all been distributed, Telkomsel will use the guard band -- a gap between one allocated bandwidth and the next -- to try out the technology.
"The frequency is full. The government has to find a solution for Telkom and Indosat," said Telkom's fixed-line services director Suryatin Setiawan.
BRTI has said that it might recommend that the government revoke the license of CAC if the company was unable to install necessary infrastructure immediately.
CAC, an affiliate of Thailand's leading cellular operator Telecom Asia Orange, is required to build 939 base transceiver stations (BTS) by 2005, however indications are that they may fall short of that target.