Komselindo to offer international roaming
JAKARTA (JP): PT Komselindo, a mobile cellular telecommunications operator, will start offering international roaming later this month, the company's commercial director said yesterday.
Zen Smith said the company's international roaming would initially cover Malaysia, Thailand and Australia.
"In the beginning we will start with Malaysia," he said, adding that the firm would cooperate with the Malaysian firm Mobicom.
Zen said the firm would cover Australia in cooperation with Telstra, and Thailand in cooperation with Total Acces Cellular System. It would then look at entering Hong Kong.
He said that Lucent Technology, a subsidiary of AT&T, had won a contract to install 166,500 telephone lines for PT Komselindo. The project was part of the company's plan to employ the cellular digital mobile advanced (CDMA) system, a more advanced technology compared to the advanced mobile phone system (AMPS) and global system for mobile (GSM) communications now operating in Indonesia.
The application of high technology such as CDMA, he said, was a prerequisite amid the cut-throat competition among cellular phone operators in Indonesia.
The contract would include the construction of 300 base transceiver stations and seven central digital switches in Jakarta, he said.
"The project is expected to be completed by October 1997," he said, adding that the firm had allocated around US$150 million (Rp 354 billion) for the project.
On the government's recent move to cut air-time tariffs, Zen said it would not affect the company's business: "But we don't yet know the actual impact on revenue."
The government announced late last month a cut in the tariff for cellular services to Rp 270 a minute from Rp 275.
He said that by December last year the company had 105,000 subscribers and hoped to have 175,000 subscribers by the end of 1997. "The target to increase the subscribers will surely be followed by maintaining the existing subscribers," he said.
He said that Komselindo, 35 percent owned by Telkom and 65 percent by Elektrindo Nusantara, was working on interconnections with other AMPS operators like PT Telesera and PT Metrosel Nusantara. Komselindo, he said, covered Greater Jakarta, West Java, North Sumatra, Aceh, Padang and Ujungpandang and Manado in North Sulawesi.
Telesera covers Bali, Kalimantan, Palembang, Batam, Riau and Lampung and PT Metrosel Nusantara covers Central and East Java, Maluku and Irian Jaya.
With interconnection cooperation, he said, the subscribers of Komselindo could communicate with mobile users in areas not covered by firm. "Someone in Jakarta can communicate with somebody in Bali," he said. Komselindo does not cover Bali but Telesera does.
He said the firm had introduced a total guarantee for the cellular phone handsets owned by it. The guarantee would cover a handset exchange because of loss, breakage, fire or theft.
"But it does not guarantee phone handsets bought directly from the factory," he said because they had their own factory guarantees.
The country now has seven companies which offer cellular mobile telecommunications. They use three different systems: GSM communications, the most recently introduced system, operated by PT Telkomsel, PT Satelindo and PT Excelcomindo; AMPS an older analog system, operated by Metrosel, Telesera and PT Komselindo; and Nordic Mobile Telephone, an analog service primarily installed in vehicles, operated by PT Mobisel. (09)