Indosat selects vendors

JAKARTA (JP): Three telecommunications equipment giants, Nortel of Canada, Nokia of Finland and Ericsson of Sweden, are competing to be the vendor of PT Indosat's Personal Communication Network (PCN) project.

Indosat's president, Tjahjono Soerjodibroto, said here yesterday in collaboration with PT Inti and PT Telkom, his company had set up a consortium which will operate DCS-1800 in the greater Jakarta area by June 1998.

The Digital Cordless System (DCS-1800) and the Personal Mobile Phone Service (PHS) are two PCN systems already approved by the government to be applied in Indonesia.

"We are ready to operate the system with or without any overseas partner as a shareholder. Some companies have already expressed an interest in joining the consortium, but we don't think we need any at the moment," Tjahjono said, adding that Indosat controlled 55 percent of shares in the consortium.

Indosat, Inti and other parties previously set up PT Primasel to serve PHS in East Java.

The prospective top executive of the DCS-1800 operator, Unggul S.M. Tampubolon, said the company would be officially and legally incorporated as a joint venture company later this year.

Tampubolon, who is now Indosat's general manager for legal and public relations, said the consortium would soon select a vendor for the system. (icn)