Plan to reduce bandwidth hailed

JAKARTA (JP): The government's plan to reduce frequency bandwidths for certain cellular operators operating on both 900 MHz and 1800 Mhz is expected to entice new investors to come and invest in the country's mobile phone industry, according to an expert.

As a consequence of the plan, the government will have to review and reevaluate existing licenses in respect of their bandwidths.

Danny Buldansyah, engineering general manager at PT Excelcomindo Pratama, one of the country's leading operators, hoped that the plan would bring about healthier competition.

"Hopefully it will, because the current allocation of frequency ranges is certainly not fair," he said on Wednesday.

He was referring to the fact that certain companies in the industry have obtained licenses to operate with greater frequency ranges.

"The country's three leading operators are now operating on 900 Mhz and 1800 MHz, but some operators have more bandwidth than others," he added.

To date, the government has granted PT Telkom and PT Indosat the right to manage a total range of frequencies of up to 30 MHz.

There are now five companies operating on 900 Mhz and 1800 MHz, namely PT Telkomsel, PT TelkoMobile, PT Satelindo, PT Indonesian Satellite (IM3) and PT Excelcomindo.

Telkomsel and TelkoMobile are subsidiaries of PT Telkom, while Satelindo and IM3 belong to PT Indosat.

According to Danny, his company has licenses to operate on 900 MHz and 1800 MHz with a total of 15 MHz bandwidth. "That 15 MHz bandwidth is more than enough for us. That amount should be enough for others too."

Komarudin S.K, Telkom's operations and marketing director, did not object to the plan as long as the government could guarantee and fulfill the frequency capacity needs of the operators.

He also shared Danny's opinion that 15 MHz was an appropriate bandwidth for a cellular operator.

By the end of the year, the number of mobile users in the country is expected to reach 5.1 million.

Telkomsel is the biggest operator with some 2.5 million customers throughout the country.

Excelcomindo has around 20 percent of the country's cellular market, or almost a million costumers.(10)