Lucent wins $105m million CDMA deal

JAKARTA (JP): Analog cellular operator PT Komselindo has awarded a US$105 million contract to Lucent Technologies of the United States to supply and install the country's first commercial Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology.

According to a statement issued yesterday, Lucent would set up an overlay CDMA system on Komselindo's existing network of analog narrow-band Advanced Mobile Phone Service (AMPS) system in Jakarta; Bandung in West Java; Manado and Ujungpandang in Sulawesi; Medan and Banda Aceh in Sumatra.

Komselindo's CDMA blueprint calls for the eventual establishment of a 750,000-user network, Lucent said.

More than 300 base stations and the 13-kilobyte-per-second CDMA voice-coder would be supplied and installed by Lucent which won a bid over Samsung of South Korea and Motorola of the United States.

The initial system set up will be completed within a six month period, according to Lucent.

Komselindo is 65 percent owned by PT Elektrindo Nusantara, an affiliate of the Bimantara Group, and 35 percent by state-owned domestic telecommunications operator PT Telkom.

In addition to Komselindo, there are two other AMPS operators in Indonesia, PT Metrosel and PT Telekomindo which also plan to upgrade their services into CDMA systems later this year.

AMPS telephones have been known to suffer from fraud and cloning problems.

The government has approved the U.S. developed-CDMA technology, which can reduce overall network costs and provide exceptional voice quality. CDMA is being adopted around the world as the wireless industry standard to deliver digital cellular and personal communications services. It offers economical, clear and secure wireless communications. (icn)