Mobile Selular gets $60 million loan

Mobile Selular gets $60 million loan

JAKARTA (JP): PT Mobile Selular Indonesia (Mobisel), a private cellular telecommunications provider, signed an agreement yesterday on a US$60 million credit facility with Nissho Iwai International of Japan.

Mobisel is 70 percent owned by PT Rajasa Hazanah Perkasa, 25 percent by state-owned PT Telkom and 5 percent by Telkom's employee pension fund. Rajasa, partly owned by International Wireless Communications of the United States and PT Detona Satya Dinamika, is controlled by PT Bina Reksa Perdana, a firm owned by businessman Hutomo (Tommy) Mandala Putra.

Mobisel's president, Suprapto Pegeng, said that the commercial loan would be used to finance the expansion of the company's improved Nordic mobile telephone (NMT-450i) system.

The project was previously run by Rajasa, which applied NMT- 450, the first generation of the system.

"There are currently 26,000 NMT-450 subscribers. We expect to increase the number to 80,000 subscribers later this year after the establishment of a network spanning from Lampung in southern Sumatra to Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara," he said.

He said that Mobisel was the only NMT-450i license holder in Indonesia to operate nationally.

The government has licensed three nation-wide mobile cellular telecoms operators using the global system for mobile communications (GSM) technology -- including PT Satelindo, PT Telkomsel and PT Excelcomindo. In the meantime, there are also three telecoms operators, PT Metro Selular Nusantara, PT Telekomindo and PT Komselindo, applying the advanced mobile phone system (AMPS-800) in several provinces.

An analyst said that for the same coverage the investment cost for the NMT-450i system was one-third cheaper than for a GSM project and 50 percent less than an AMPS project.

Nissho Iwai's general manager for telecommunications systems, Naoyoshi Abe, said that his company is also negotiating with Mobisel to acquire up to 10 percent of its shares. (icn)