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)