Ratelindo to install 50,000 radio phone lines
Ratelindo to install 50,000 radio phone lines
JAKARTA (JP): PT Radio Telepon Indonesia (Ratelindo), the
country's first private cellular digital radio telephone
operator, will install 50,000 fixed-cellular telephone lines this
year.
The company's marketing director, Remedi Parangin-angin,
announced last week that Ratelindo had thus far registered 6,000
subscribers.
Ratelindo, established in 1993 to provide fixed-cellular
digital radio telephone services, is 45 percent owned by the
state-owned domestic telecommunications operator PT Telkom and 55
percent by PT Bakrie Electronics Company, which is affiliated
with the widely diversified Bakrie Group and is 30 percent owned
by PTT Telecom BV, a subsidiary of the Dutch-giant KPN
Netherlands.
Ratelindo is supplied by Hughes Network System, a subsidiary
of Hughes Aircraft of the United States, with a high-capacity
fixed wireless digital telephone system for the network
operations.
Supported by the two foreign names, Ratelindo is expected to
cater to businesses and the general public that are not served by
the fixed cable telephone system.
The government has licensed the company to operate in Greater
Jakarta and West Java. However, Ratelindo has so far been able to
serve only several areas on the edges of the city.
The basic difference between normal telephone services
operated by Telkom and the fixed-cellular digital radio telephone
services introduced by Ratelindo is in the connection to a
telephone exchange. A normal telephone line is connected to an
exchange by cable, while a radio telephone line uses airwaves.
Remedi said that the fixed-cellular digital radio telephone
lines, the numbers of which start with 9, can be operated just
like fixed cable ones.
"All of the terminals used by Ratelindo have been certified by
the government," he said.
He said Ratelindo uses two kinds of devices, called multiple
subscriber unit and single subscriber unit, which are installed
at subscribers' locations.
A multiple subscriber unit can serve up to 96 subscribers and
is suitable for housing complexes, offices or markets, while the
single subscriber unit is designed for individual subscribers.
The technology applied to such a service is derived from the
advanced mobile phone system which is developed in the United
States as the extended time division multiple access.
In addition to advanced mobile phone system, there are three
other cellular telephone systems adopted in Indonesia, the Global
System for Mobile Communications and Nordic Mobil Telephone.
Meanwhile, another private cellular mobile telecommunications
operator in Indonesia is conducting a trial wireless network
using code division multiple access technology, supported by AT&T
of the U.S. (icn)