Phone problems in South Jakarta

JAKARTA (JP): In a similar fashion to the impact of water and electricity company repair work, the drilling project of telecommunication firm PT Telkom on Jl. Raya Pasar Minggu in South Jakarta has left hundreds of its customers in trouble.

According to head of Telkom's South Jakarta district, Rizal Saat, the repair work has disrupted the use of 400 telephone lines with numbers starting 790, 791, 792... through 799.

" The service is expected to return to normal again on Jan. 18," Rizal was quoted by Antara as saying Monday.

According to him, the work has damaged two cables with a total capacity of 1,200 and 1,400 lines respectively.

Rizal did not disclose when the project was started and what had caused the damage.

He only said the affected customers included those living in the surrounding areas of Jl. Cikoko Raya, the Cikoko Police housing complex, the Bumi Sarinah estate, Jl. M.T. Haryono, Jl. Pasar Minggu, Jl. Duren Tiga, Pengadean Utara, Perdatam, Jl. Tendean, Mampang Prapatan and Tegal Parang.

Like in many cities nationwide, unprofessional work in repairing the water, telephone and electricity utilities has often affected customers as well as motorists.

This work usually leaves big holes in the streets, which also endanger people's lives. None of the companies, nor their contractors were willing to fix the damage until there were strong protests from the public.

In many cases, the companies could only express their regrets over the problem.

Referring to the poorly carried out Telkom work in South Jakarta, Rizal said: "We're sorry about this. If customers are still unable to use their telephones after Jan. 18, they should just call the emergency number 117 for malfunctioning lines." (bsr)