Salim enters paging service and television
JAKARTA (JP): Through its Hong Kong-based subsidiary, Salim Group, the country's major conglomerate, enters the radio paging service in cooperation with the cooperative of the employees of the Ministry of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications.
The secretary General of the ministry, Jonathan Parapak, introduced PT Indolink First Pacific (IFP) at a party held at Le Meridien hotel here on Saturday evening.
The company, established with an investment of US$10 million, is 80 owned by First Pacific Communications Holdings (FPCH) BV of the Netherlands, in which Salim Group has a stake, and 20 percent by the cooperative.
Salim Group, owned by Indonesia's richest businessman Liem Sioe Liong, controls a stake at First Pacific in Hong Kong, which operates cellular telecommunications and paging services.
The cooperative has an option to acquire more shares in IFP gradually within 20 years until its stake becomes a majority.
IFP's operational director, Bruce Crandall, said that Indolink, the company's brand for the paging service, is ready for competition in the paging industry.
The government has so far licensed 39 companies to operate local radio paging services, 27 of which cooperate with the state-owned domestic telecommunications monopoly PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom) and four others operate nationwide radio paging services, including those branded SkyTell and EasyCall. The government will allow only five operators to serve nationwide radio paging and just one paging company with international services, which has not been chosen yet.
IFP, scheduled to launch its service this month, will firstly operate in Jakarta, Bandung of West Java and Surabaya of East Java.
Broadcasting
Meanwhile, a Salim Group executive, John B. Pasaribu, said that Indosiar Visual Mandiri, a television station owned by the group, will likely delay the start of its broadcasting from the original schedule of this month due to technical problems.
Pasaribu, who is in charge for computer and communication systems, said there are technical problems related to frequency signals in several cities and frequency jams which occur at certain intervals.
Indosiar will be on air in the 41 ultra high frequency.
The country currently has five television broadcasters, comprising of Rajawali Citra Televisi Indonesia (RCTI), Televisi Pendidikan Indonesia (TPI), Cakrawala Andalas Televisi (Anteve), the state-owned Televisi Republik Indonesia (TVRI) and Surabaya Centra Televisi (SCTV) in Surabaya, East Java.
The government has also licensed four other companies to operate in television broadcasting, including PT Sanitya Mandara Televisi in Yogyakarta, PT Merdeka Citra Televisi Indonesia in Semarang, Central Java, PT Ramako Indotelevisi in Batam, Riau, and PT Cakrawala Bumi Sriwijaya Televisi in Palembang, South Sumatra.(icn)