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)