Six big firms shortlisted for Indosat mobile phone project
Six big firms shortlisted for Indosat mobile phone project
JAKARTA (JP): Six major phone companies have been shortlisted
to help state-owned international telephone operator PT Indosat
launch its mobile phone business next month.
Alcatel, Ericsson, Lucent, Motorola, Nokia, and Siemens are
now being considered to help Indosat become a full network and
service provider, operational and technical director Garuda
Sugardo said on Tuesday.
"They have submitted their business plans. We will choose from
them as soon as the government issues our license," Garuda told
The Jakarta Post.
The selected company will help build the infrastructure such
as the exchange switching, controller, base transceiver stations,
intelligent network, wireless application system, and network
management system.
The government is expected to award Indosat a license to
become a mobile telephone operator next month, he said.
The license is given in return for a termination of Indosat's
monopoly over international telecommunication services in
Indonesia earlier than the original date of 2004.
PT Telkom, the state company with a monopoly over fixed line
telecommunications, has also agreed to relinquish its monopoly
earlier than the original date of 2010.
Officials said these monopolies would be abolished in either
2002 or 2003.
Indosat and Telkom, both publicly-listed companies, have
subsidiaries which currently dominate the mobile phone market in
Indonesia.
Garuda said the license would enable Indosat to operate a
mobile service under the advanced GSM 1800 format next year.
The first to enjoy the service will be those in the Jakarta-
Bandung area, Semarang-Yogyakarta-Solo area, Surabaya-Malang-
Denpasar area, and the Batam area, he said.
Earlier, during a seminar on telecommunication business,
Garuda said winning the competition in the future would depend
upon the power of technology.
"Operators smart enough to choose the right technology, and
who could converge between mobile and fixed telephones, will win
the competition," he said in the seminar organized by the alumni
association of the University of Indonesia's Faculty of
Engineering.
He said that in terms of investment, mobile communications is
cheaper to run, and has a higher capacity than fixed-line.
"The installation is faster and there is no need to dig for
wires," Garuda said. (10)