Public phones needed

Public phones needed

From Sinar Pagi

I am a university student in Jakarta and a regular user of
public communications facilities, particularly public telephones.
The following is my complaint to PT Telkom about this matter:

One day I urgently needed to contact my family. I was then at
the Lebak Bulus bus station in South Jakarta. I saw a lot of
public telephones -- both coin-operated and those that require
telephone cards. However, after some testing, I found only two
that worked. Strangely, one Rp 100 coin only allowed for one
minute of usage.

On another day I happened to need to use coin-operated public
telephones in a number of places: the Pasar Minggu area, along Jl
Ciputat Raya up to Kebayoran Lama market in South Jakarta and
Ciputat market. Unfortunately, out of quite a few public
telephones available, only one or two were in good working order.
Hence there were long lines of people waiting to use these
telephones. However, when I got to the lobby of the Blok M bus
station, I was impressed by the neatly arranged public
telephones, all of which were 100 percent in working order.

In view of the above, I would like to ask PT Telkom, which
is now publicly listed, whether to have a few minutes of
telephone conversation one must go to a telecommunications kiosk,
which are mushrooming across Jakarta. I would also like to know
whether the few good coin-operated public telephones have been
reset so that one coin can be used only for one-minute of
conversation instead of the usual three minutes.

G. KINANTI

(Name and address known to the editor)