Indonesia is ready for multimedia era: Minister

Indonesia is ready for multimedia era: Minister

JAKARTA (JP): Despite the low penetration of
telecommunications infrastructure per Indonesian inhabitant, the
country is ready to enter the multimedia era in the next century,
according to Minister of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications
Joop Ave.

The minister said Saturday that Indonesia had a clear vision
and feasible program to enter the multimedia era.

"We have prepared students to be scientists in this field.
What we have to prepare is the hardware," Joop said when
officially opening Asia-Pacific Telecom '97 at the Jakarta
fairground in Kemayoran.

All telecommunications companies and related firms should have
a strong commitment to prepare to enter the multimedia era in the
next century, Joop said.

He highlighted that the agreement signed by the state-owned
telecommunications firm PT Telkom and Lucent Technologies of the
United States yesterday to develop a center for research,
development and innovation reflected the former's strong
commitment to multimedia.

The five-day event, which also features a ministerial round-
table meeting, public lectures and a conference, is focusing on
competitiveness through multimedia and wireless technology in the
global society of the 21st century.

Multimedia denotes a mean superhighway (high-capacity
infrastructure network) which allows people to gain information.
The information, including video, data, text, still images and
moving pictures, will be accessible within a similar time through
a single medium operated by a user. The user, therefore, is free
to enjoy a variety of information interactively or non-
interactively.

Indonesia is preparing a multimedia project dubbed Nusantara
21. In some aspects, the concepts are the same as Singapore One
and the Multimedia Super Corridor in Malaysia.

Nusantara 21 is designed to make the country a fully fledged
member of the global information society by early in the next
century. Nusantara means archipelago and "twenty-one" is used to
show that Indonesia will have information and telecommunications
infrastructure of a level suitable for the 21st century.

"Indonesia's is an ambitious plan, but we know what kind of
development it is," Joop said.

He stressed that the country would be one of the world's
nations actively developing multimedia and telecommunications.

In a related development, a senior executive of Telkom's
research and development division, Suryatin Setiawan, announced
here Saturday that his company had agreed with Lucent to develop
a research center in Bandung.

"Telkom and Lucent are investing Rp 12 billion and US$35
million to develop the center. We are preparing three programs,
tele-education, intelligence networking and telecommunications
network management. They are scheduled to be completed in the
next year," he said, adding that a number of experts from
Lucent's Bell Labs would visit Telkom next year as part of the
joint project.

Telkom also signed other deals with state-owned
telecommunications equipment maker PT Inti and with some private
firms.

The deal with Inti will enable Telkom to improve its expertise
in telecommunications and information design. Telkom, together
with its pension fund foundation, PT Delta Sejati and PT Kliring
also set up a joint venture company to coordinate
telecommunications interconnection billing charges nationwide.

Separately, PT Multimedia Nusantara, a private multimedia
provider, signed an agreement with NHK television station of
Japan.

Multimedia Nusantara is 31 percent owned by Telkom, 15 percent
by PT Indosat, 5 percent by state-owned television broadcaster
Yayasan TVRI and 49 percent by PT Indocitra Grahabawana, a
private firm controlled by businessman Sudwikatmono.

Through the agreement NHK will supply the programs for cable
television operated by Multimedia Nusantara under the Metra
brand. Fifty-four cable television stations in 29 nations
currently use NHK programs.

Metra's president Soehana said that his company would invest
Rp 53 billion to install 8,000 home-passed lines for the
multimedia (which includes pay-per-view television) services in
the Menteng and Pondok Indah areas in Jakarta.

"Some Rp 288 billion is needed for out plan to expand capacity
to 50,000 more homes in Jakarta next year," he said. (icn)