Siemens, NEC link to boost Indonesian telecoms
Siemens, NEC link to boost Indonesian telecoms
Phelim Kyne, Dow Jones/Jakarta
German engineering conglomerate Siemens AG is partnering with
Japan's NEC Corp. on a Rp 559 billion (US$57.39 million) fiber
optical telecommunications upgrade aimed at bringing Indonesia's
creaky domestic network up to international standards, a Siemens
executive said.
The project reflects Indonesia's efforts to overhaul its
ruinous infrastructure as a means of luring back desperately
needed foreign investors deterred by Indonesia's shambolic
telecom, road, port and rail networks.
Foreign direct investment into Indonesia slid 26 percent on
year in 2004 to $10.3 billion.
Siemens and NEC will lay a modern network of land and
underwater fiber optic cables linking the islands of Java,
Sumatra, Kalimantan and Batam, the "gateway to Singapore,
Malaysia and Thailand", PT Siemens Indonesia fixed networks head
Markus Strohmeier told Dow Jones Newswires.
The two firms won the contracts for the Jasuka project from PT
Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom), the country's largest telecoms
operator.
The Jasuka project will create the first three of PT Telkom's
"master plan" of eight ring fiber optical networks linking the
islands of Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan and Sulawesi, NEC Corp.'s
Submarine Networks Division marketing manager, Takashi Kodama,
said. He did not elaborate on how much the deal is worth to NEC.
Strohmeier said, "(After this project) the country will be
linked internationally with high (telecom traffic) capacity
that's very reliable and that's what we don't have today."
Siemens will receive Rp 154 billion for providing the
transmission technology for the undersea cable portions of the
project. NEC will provide and install the cable. The German firm
will also source and install both the cable and transmission
technology for the land-based portions of the project.
Strohmeier insisted a national telecom system upgrade is long
overdue.
"Try picking up your phone now and calling Papua province
(and) you'll have a success rate of about 10 percent," he said.
Indonesia faces enormous geographical and technical challenges
to integrating its constituent islands into a reliable, modern
telecommunications network.
"Indonesia is scattered over many islands, a (technological)
problem the western world has hardly ever faced," Strohmeier
said.
The country's current telecommunications network hinges on
antiquated microwave systems supported by relay towers strung
throughout the archipelago and first-generation undersea fiber
optical cables.
Strohmeier said those systems are not capable of supporting
the traffic, reliability and security that more modern technology
allows.
"There's a spark going to Kalimantan, a spark going to
Sulawesi... but then a fishermen rips (the cable) apart," he
said.
The Jasuka project is just the first step in upgrading and
linking Indonesia with state-of-the art telecoms technology.
Indonesia's government tendered a large-scale, countrywide
fiber-optical linkage project at the Infrastructure Summit in
January.
But Strohmeier cautioned that the proposed national "ring of
rings" fiber optical network project poses potentially crippling
funding challenges for Indonesia's cash-strapped government.
"We estimated that if done in (the government's) design, (the
project) will cost $1 billion because there will be so many
landing points (from) sea to land....which isn't exactly cheap."