PT Indosat sets up satellite subsidiary
JAKARTA (JP): State-owned PT Indosat has set up a new subsidiary called PT Indokomsat Lintas Dunia to provide satellite-based telecommunications services and facilities.
Indosat's president, Tjahjono Soerjodibroto, said yesterday that the new company, which was actually established last year, will carry out the business of I-CO Global Communications Ltd. in Indonesia.
I-CO was established by the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization known as Inmarsat which provides mobile communications for ships at sea, aircraft in flight and land users. It owns and operates a number of telecommunications and distress satellites.
Indosat has spent US$12.87 million to acquire a 1.41 percent stake in I-CO, a global mobile satellite system to be launched in 2000. The system will permit mobile voice and data communications through a hand-held telephone anywhere in the world -- on land, sea or air.
Apart from the Inmarsat project, Indosat operates 2,004 satellite telephone circuits and 89 satellite data circuits through five International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (Intelsat) earth stations. It operates 564 satellite telephone circuits via a new earth station at its Surabaya gateway in East Java.
Meanwhile, another executive said yesterday that Indosat, which is listed on the Jakarta and New York stock exchanges, plans to participate in the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) cellular telephone project in Cambodia.
Junino Jahja said that the Cambodian government is expected to open a tender and select the GSM operator later this year.
"Our only rival for the Cambodian GSM project is Telstra of Australia," Junino said after attending a credit facility deal from Bank Bira to Camintel, a Cambodian subsidiary of Indosat.
Indosat has a 49 percent stake in Camintel, the company established to repair and renovate the network which was vandalized during political upheavals in Cambodia two years ago. The other 51 percent is held by the Cambodian Ministry of Post and Telecommunications.
According to Junino, who is also a Camintel commissioner, without a tender the Cambodian government would probably select foreign telecommunications firms to set up joint venture GSM operators with telecommunications companies in that country.
There are currently three mobile cellular telephone operators in Cambodia, running the total access cellular system (TACS) and advanced mobile phone system (AMPS).
Indosat is involved in the development and expansion of GSM in Indonesia through PT Telkomsel, which is partly controlled by state-owned PT Telkom.
Camintel signed on Tuesday an $8 million credit facility extended by Bank Bira for the telecommunications network refurbishment project in Cambodia.
In 1994, Indosat won a $15 million project to restore the telecommunication networks in that country.
Camintel's general manager, Steve Yanuar, said that the facility would be used to finance the installation of new telecommunications facilities in 21 provinces in Cambodia.
The project will be completed in June, he said. (icn)