Nortel to set up JVC

Nortel to set up JVC

JAKARTA (JP): Nortel, a Canadian telecommunications equipment
producer, plans to establish a joint venture company in Indonesia
to anticipate growing opportunities in the Asian region,
particularly in the Indonesian archipelago.

The company's Indonesian country manager, Malcolm Bayes, said
here yesterday that Nortel was currently assessing some local
companies to be its partner in the joint venture company.

"We are also participating in the cellular tenders currently
held by two cellular operators," he said.

He said that Nortel was competing to be the vendor of PT
Indosel's Digital Cordless System (DCS)-1800 project and of PT
Metrosel's Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) project.

Indosel, a consortium primarily owned by PT Indosat, plans to
operate the DCS-1800 in the greater Jakarta area by 1998.
Metrosel, which currently operates the AMPS system in Central
Java, plans to improve its services with the CDMA.

Unggul S.M. Tampubolon of Indosat said that Nortel is
competing with Nokia of Finland and Ericsson of Sweden in the
DCS-1800 tender.

Bayes said that Nortel had also supplied equipment related to
switching, market data, PABX and transmission to other companies
in Indonesia. (icn)