Local firms join forces in multimedia business

Local firms join forces in multimedia business

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia is developing its multimedia services.
A number of partnerships have been made to prepare for the
multimedia business.

There are at least five firms setup to run multimedia or
multimedia-related services. The multimedia firms, mostly
involving the same shareholders, include PT Indonusa Telemedia,
PT Multimedia Nusantara, PT Multi Media Asia (M2A) and PT YTC.

Indonusa is to offer beginning next year interactive
nontelephony services to television viewers. Indonusa is jointly
owned by state-owned PT Telkom, cellular telecommunications
provider PT Telekomindo Prima Bhakti, private television
broadcaster RCTI and PT Datakom Asia.

Multimedia Nusantara is a consortium of PT Indocitra
Grahabawana, Telkom, state-owned PT Indosat and state-owned
television broadcaster TVRI.

Multi Media Asia is 73.33 percent owned by PT Pasifik Satelit
Nusantara and 26.67 percent by Indosat.

PT YTC is owned by Datakom (25 percent), businessman Youk
Tanzil (35 percent) and Indosat (40 percent).

Among the companies participating in the multimedia business
are Indosat, Telkom and Datakom. As the state-owned companies,
Indosat and Telkom are the only parties allowed to run
telecommunications services, including multimedia.

The involvement of private operators in Indonesia's
telecommunications industry will be permitted only on condition
that they cooperate with the state-owned companies under joint
operations, joint ventures or management agreements.

Therefore, Telkom and Indosat, together or separately, always
participate in multimedia firms. Moreover, these companies have
the telecommunications infrastructure necessary and important for
multimedia business.

Datakom, owned by Indosat, PT Persada Giri Abadi, PT Lembah
Subur Adipertiwi and PT Azbindo Nusantara, will be one of the
prospective leading multimedia firms in Indonesia because the
company has been setup as an umbrella for several subsidiaries
and affiliated firms which focus on broadcasting,
telecommunications and value-added telecommunications services,
including PT Media Citra Indostar. Media Citra will operate the
Indostar satellite later this year.

Services

With the rapid development of information and
telecommunications technologies, people have altered the way they
communicate.

Multimedia is a convergence of equipment, services and
networks. The components of the equipment, which include
telecommunications, computers and videos, have merged. As have
the components of services, which include newspapers, movies,
cable television, telecommunications, publishing and
broadcasting.

Multimedia usually comprises news, video-on-demand and on-line
shopping. Several new concepts are on the way, including
"edutainment" (an educational software for children to increase
basic learning skills), "telecooperation" (long-distance
cooperation) and "hypermedia".

Indonusa, plans to provide entertainment services, including
news, audio materials, videos and games-on-demand and home
shopping, as well as financial transactions.

The company expects to run a trial operation in March or April
next year and have 500,000 subscribers within the first five
years of operations.

Customers will require high-quality sophisticated services,
global coverage and competitive prices. Developing countries are
accelerating telecommunications development to improve service
quality, expand coverage and increase penetration.

Though Indonusa estimated that it would launch its multimedia
service in less than a year, analysts said that the definite
services of multimedia would be available in Indonesia by 2005 at
the earliest.

However, other analysts have said that the multimedia embryo
is already in daily use in Indonesia's big cities. Applications
includes the Internet, Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN)
and Intelligent Network (IN) facilities.

ISDN is, in general, a network evolving from a telephony
integrated digital network that provides end-to-end digital
connectivity. This supports a wide range of services, including
voice and nonvoice services, to which users have access by a
limited set of standard multipurpose user-network interfaces.

Internet services were commercially applied in Indonesia in
1994. There are currently more than 40 Internet providers in the
country, with an estimate of dozens of million of people enjoying
the services.

Telkom is also set to launch IN, a service facilitating
information exchange through several systems. The company has
installed a series of digital and fiber-optic networks and plans
to connect all homes with optical fiber, replacing its
conventional cable networks. The project will include fiber in
the loop, fiber in the curb and fiber in home installations.

Indosat has joined many overseas telecommunications projects,
including the Asian Pacific Cable Network, Southeast Asia-Middle
East-Western Europe (Seamewe 3) and Trans Pacific cable (TPC-5).

Satellite systems also play their parts in the multimedia's
infrastructure. M2A will deliver multimedia digital
communications directly to homes throughout Asia. The system, to
be able to serve up to four million users, will be in service in
1999.

Broadband

Development in technology has the ability to facilitate
multimedia services. Indonesia has adapted a digital technology
which enables service integration, improved transmission quality
and expanded transmission capacity.

Computer and telecommunications technology enables new service
developments and sophistication. Satellite technology enables
worldwide coverage and multiservice transmission. Optical fiber
technology provides high capacity transmission facilities.

Indonesia is also preparing for the broadband
telecommunications era, which is expected to facilitate better
multimedia services.

Broadband will be necessary for the telecommunications of
video, television broadcasting and high-definition television.
For example, if a digital telephone transmission just needs a 64-
kilobits-per-second (kbps) current, the transmission of video
communications will need many multiples of 64 kbps currents.

Normally, low-speed data and telephone transmissions work on
the 64 kbps current, while still images, video conference and
television broadcasting, use megabytes, and three-dimensional
television will use gigabits.

Multimedia, one of the few dominant themes in the ongoing
debates over the future of network communications, will be a
lucrative business in Indonesia, following rapid growth of the
basic telecommunications industry. (icn)