Mobisel offers new product to improve its services
JAKARTA (JP): PT Mobile Selular Indonesia (Mobisel), a private cellular telecommunications provider, introduced here yesterday its new Nordic mobile telephone (NMT-450i) system which will operate nationwide.
The NMT-450i service is a field-proven cellular technology which was developed in Europe.
Mobisel president Suprapto Pegeng said that 21,000 users, primarily in Jakarta, Tangerang and Bandung, had registered for the service. The company expects to have at least 76,000 users by the end of this year. "We have allocated US$150 million for the investment this year," Carlson Smith, executive advisor/chief financial officer of Mobisel, said
Mobisel, incorporated in February 1996, 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, a firm owned by businessman Hutomo (Tommy) Mandala Putra, previously operated the NMT-450, the first generation of the NMT-450i system.
Mobisel, which has signed a $30 million contract with Nokia of Finland for the NMT-450i, won a $60 million credit facility last March with Nissho Iwai International of Japan,
To support its customer service, Mobisel signed a $4 million deal last August with Logica of Britain for a modern billing system.
Pegeng said that his company would extend the NMT-450i service to Sumatra, Bali and Lombok after establishing a network from Lampung in southern Sumatra to Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara.
He said that Mobisel was the only NMT-450i license holder in Indonesia to operate nationally.
Industry experts consider that NMT-450i technology is well suited to Indonesia because its signal banding offers wider geographic coverage at a substantially lower cost than other cellular technology.
Indonesia has licensed three nationwide mobile cellular telecommunications operators to use the global system for mobile communications (GSM) technology. They are PT Satelindo, PT Telkomsel and PT Excelcomindo. It has also licensed three cellular operators, including PT Metro Selular Nusantara, PT Telekomindo and PT Komselindo, to cover several provinces with the advanced mobile phone system (AMPS), which can be upgraded to a code division multiple access (CDMA) system.
By the end of 1996, there were some 600,000 cellular users in Indonesia: 60 percent were GSM subscribers and 33 percent were AMPS users.
The government wants eight million telephone lines to be installed in the ongoing Sixth Five-Year Development Plan period to end in March 1999. This target includes 6.7 million fixed- telephone lines and a network capacity for 1.3 million mobile telephones.
Satelindo
Separately, Satelindo, the operator of GSM, Palapa-C satellites and international telecommunications, finalized documentation here yesterday for US$152.42 million worth of loans which it has received from a syndicate of 17 international banks arranged by Credit Lyonnais and Deutsche Morgan Grenfell.
The loans, including a $127.42 million term loan guaranteed by the Export-Import Bank of the United States, were extended for the construction and launch of the Palapa-C1 and Palapa-C2 satellites.
Satelindo president Iwa Sewaka said the facility had extended long term finance for the construction of Satelindo's Lockheed Martin Atlas IIAS rocket, used to launch its Palapa-C1 satellite in January 1996, and to purchase insurance policies from March & McLennan to insure the launch and orbit of the Palapa-C1 and Palapa-C2 satellites.
Palapa-C2 was launched in May 1996. The Palapa-C series were supplied by Hughes Space Company, a leading U.S. spacecraft manufacturer.
The loan guarantee was expected to smooth Satelindo's plan to float some of its shares on the capital market by July 1998.
The company, set up in January 1994, gained $586 million in 1995 when DeTeMobil of Germany acquired 25 percent of its shares. Satelindo is 22.5 percent owned by state-owned domestic telecommunications company PT Telkom, 7.5 percent by state-owned international telecommunications company PT Indosat, 25 percent by DeTeMobil and 45 percent by PT Bimagraha Telekomindo. A clause in DeTeMobil's share acquisition agreement requires Satelido to list some of its shares within two years of the acquisition. (icn)