NEC expands capacity of telephone exchange

BEKASI, West Java (JP): PT NEC Nusantara Communications (NNC), a Japanese-Indonesian joint venture, will start operating a new digital telephone exchange plant here with a production capacity of 400,000 lines per annum.

NNC's president, Norihiko Okamoto, told reporters here yesterday that the plant, located on a 28,000 square meter area in the East Jakarta Industrial Park (EJIP) in Lemahabang, Bekasi, West Java, will produce exchanges with the NEAX-61 digital switching system.

The telecommunication switching technology is developed by the Tokyo-based NEC Corporation, Okamoto said.

He said the company has spent US$14.5 million in investments for the plant's construction, $6 million of which was financed with loans from Japan's Sumitomo Bank and Bank of Tokyo, carrying an interest of five percent per year.

NNC, which is 45 percent owned by NEC Corporation, 20 percent by Sumitomo Corporation, 25 percent by PT Electrindo Nusantara and 10 percent by PT Humpuss, has produced NEAX-61 digital switching equipment, with a capacity of 400,000 lines, since 1992, in its old plant in Sunter, North Jakarta.

The government has targeted the establishment of one million digital telephone lines per year during the current sixth Five Year Development Plan (Repelita VI) period. To meet the target, the government has appointed NNC, Inti Siemens of Germany and American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) to provide digital switching and transmission equipment.

NNC's director for technical and production affairs, Krishnahadi S. Pribadi, said the operation of the second plant makes NNC the biggest manufacturer of digital switching equipment in the country.

He told The Jakarta Post that the installment of NEAX-61 telephones costs between $200 and $300 per line.(fhp)