Indonesia to set up R&D on tecommunications
Indonesia to set up R&D on tecommunications
By I. Christianto
PETALUMA, California (JP): Indonesia is to set up a
telecommunications research and development center for commercial
purposes, involving local and foreign telecommunications
companies.
Minister of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications Joop Ave said
here Thursday that details of the planned center would be
announced after a series of discussions were completed in a
couple of months.
"The center will combine private, foreign and overseas
telecommunications research and development facilities and
operate as a commercial company," he said after inspecting a
telecommunications facility owned by PT Bakrie Communications
Corporation of the widely diversified Bakrie Group.
He said private telecommunications companies and state-owned
PT Telkom would cooperate with their foreign partners in
establishing the center.
"This is a broad idea, we are looking for partnerships with
leading telecommunications (equipment) companies from the United
States, Europe, Japan or other nations in Asia. This is for the
domestic market and export businesses," he said, adding that he
had held a meeting with Lucent Technologies of the U.S. during a
recent visit to Denver, Colorado.
He said the Agency for the Assessment of Application of
Technology and National Institute of Sciences would be involved
in the project.
"Funding will be a matter of loans, that's why need to forge
synergy with private firms.
"But this does not mean the government lacks funds. This is a
function of forces, brain power," he said.
He stressed that the project would be targeted at addressing
problems in software and human resources, with the goal to
establish a multibillion-dollar national information
infrastructure called Nusantara 21.
Telematika
The project will support the newly established Telematika
team.
A team of 14 cabinet ministers was set up recently by
President Soeharto to help usher Indonesia into the information
superhighway era. The team, chaired by Coordinating Minister for
Production and Distribution Hartarto, was formed by Presidential
Decree No 31/1997.
It aims to find synergy between the information and
telecommunications sectors, or what the decree dubs Telematika
for the Indonesian terms Telekomunikasi and Informatika
(telecommunications and information technology).
Joop was selected as the team's deputy chairman, while members
comprise state minister of research and technology,
minister/state secretary, minister of home affairs, minister of
defense and security, minister of information, minister of
finance, state minister of national development planning,
minister of industry and trade, minister of education and
culture, minister of manpower, state minister of administrative
reforms and minister of environment.
The team will also handle the Nusantara 21, an ambitious
telecommunications project designed to connect the whole
archipelago to the information superhighway. The project will
include the development of multimedia technology in several big
cities and broadband super-lanes by the year 2001.
Joop said that Telkom set up five years ago a research and
development center in Dayeuh Kolot in Bandung, West Java.
"Telkom is considering expanding and moving the center to
another area in Geger Kalong, Bandung. We are thinking of using
the facility in Geger Kalong as a research and development
center," he said, adding that the issue had still to be
discussed.
Telkom has so far had good cooperation with NTT of Japan and
France Telecoms of France.
"Telkom has also cooperated with domestic companies like
Bakrie which operates a telecommunications facility in the U.S.,
making it's easier to ask other companies in the U.S. to join
forces," he said.
He reiterated that the main goal of the project was to develop
a national power to answer national needs and to improve the
nation's export competitiveness.
Telkom's president, Asman A. Nasution, said the planned
telecommunications research and development center would deal
with various developments, including switching which is currently
developed by PT Elektrindo Nusantara and other equipment like
cable.
Bakrie's chairman, Aburizal Bakrie, said that participation of
the private sector was necessary to enable the center to operate
commercially. (icn)