Indosat teams up with ZTE

Indosat teams up with ZTE

JAKARTA: Indonesia's second-largest telecommunications firm,
PT Indonesian Satellite Corp., said on Friday it has asked
Zhongxing Telecommunication Equipment Co. (ZTE) to set up a trial
network of fixed wireless lines in Jakarta and Surabaya, East
Java.

Indosat said in a statement the trial is expected to be
completed by in August. China-based ZTE is a unit of ZTE Corp.,
which is listed on the Shenzhen stock market.

"We expect that the trial will be successful and later we will
evaluate it to determine a plan to operate it commercially,"
Indosat's President Director Widya Purnama said in a statement.

He said Indosat has asked ZTE to construct and finance the
network. He didn't offer details.

Indosat's choice of ZTE came after it terminated an earlier
partnership with Mega Asia Consortium, or MAC, June 17 because
the two sides failed to reach an agreement, notably over the
equity placement arrangements.

Under the deal, signed in March 18, Indosat said Mega Asia was
to build around 450,000 fixed wireless lines in Jakarta and
around 250,000 lines in Surabaya.

The project was to use code division multiple access, or CDMA,
and the capital expenditure for the project was estimated at
around US$164 per line, Indosat said. --Dow Jones