More phone service licenses expected

More phone service licenses expected

JAKARTA (JP): The government is expected to license more than
one firm to operate the Japanese-made Personal Handyphone Service
(PHS) in the country, a telecommunications executive said.

"If the government divides the domestic telecommunications
networks into seven areas in the country, it can also divide
the PHS networks into several regions, maybe more than five," the
president of the state-owned telecommunications equipment
manufacturer PT Inti, Arsyad Ismael, told The Jakarta Post
yesterday.

Industri Telekomunikasi Indonesia, or Inti, produces a range
of telecommunications equipment, including digital telephone
exchanges. It has a good chance of winning a license to provide
digital wireless telecommunications services in the country,
especially since Minister of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications
Joop Ave indicated last year that the company was qualified to
run one of the new digital cellular systems currently being
considered for Indonesia.

Inti, based in Bandung, West Java, is overseen by Minister for
Research and Technology B.J. Habibie.

The country currently has the Global System for Mobile (GSM)
communications as its only digital cellular mobile
telecommunications system. In the meantime, the government is
still studying the possibility of allowing the use next
generation telecommunication facilities, including the PHS
developed by Japan, the DCS-1800 system from Europe and code
division multiple access (CDMA) technology from the United
States.

Most of the improved digital wireless telephone systems
operate at high frequencies between 1,800 and 1,900 megahertz.

While a special team is still studying the appropriate system
for Indonesia, a number of private firms have submitted proposals
to the government to obtain the necessary licenses.

However, the government has not indicated if it will hold an
open tender for the lucrative projects in the near future.

Arsyad said yesterday that the government plans to start soon
a pilot PHS project in Surabaya, East Java, and a DCS project in
Jakarta.

"Inti will prepare a PHS project in Surabaya later this year.
The project is expected to run until December, soon after which
the government is expected to hold a tender," he said.

In Japan, PHS services, which were introduced in June 1995,
are provided by three consortia.

There are currently more than one million PHS subscribers with
service coverage limited to business areas in Japan. (icn)