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)