Station 12, Indosat tie up in Inmarsat service
Station 12, Indosat tie up in Inmarsat service
JAKARTA (JP): State-owned telecommunications company PT
Indosat will expand its mobile telecommunications service's
coverage to the Atlantic Ocean through a cooperation with a
company called Station 12, according to the Indosat's top
executive.
Indosat's division head for the Jakarta area S. Wimbo S.
Hardjito said by using earth stations owned by Station 12,
Indosat could expand the coverage of its Inmarsat (International
Maritime Satellite) service, known as Indosat Geo-7, to the
Atlantic Ocean, including the United States
The Inmarsat service enables people to communicate from ships
at sea, aircraft in flight and remote areas with small satellite
antennas.
"This will increase Geo-7's coverage to about 98 percent of
the earth," he told reporters on the sidelines of the company's
meeting with customers here.
Wimbo said Geo-7 currently only covered the Pacific Ocean and
the Indian Ocean.
Station 12, which is a joint venture owned by Netherlands' KPN
and Australia's Telstra, is considered the world's largest
Inmarsat operator, according to Wimbo.
Indosat's Inmarsat telecommunications traffic, which are
currently transmitted through the earth station in Jatiluhur,
West Java, will be transferred to Station 12's earth stations in
Perth, Western Australia, and Burum in the Netherlands.
"We think the Jatiluhur station will not be able to keep up
with rapidly changing technology," Indosat's assistant manager
for product development Firman Supriadi said.
Inmarsat service is popular among mining, energy and fishing
companies.
Wimbo said the company had about 200 corporate subscribers,
mostly oil and gas companies.
Indosat's earnings from the Geo-7 totals more than US$50,000 a
month, with a subscriber fee of about $25 a month and telephone
rate of between $2.7 and $5 a minute.
Indosat also announced on Wednesday that it had signed an
agreement with Nava Networks Ltd.. This will allow the latter to
install 9,000 kilometers of broadband marine cables, linking
Singapore, Jakarta and Singapore, for Indosat.
The agreement was signed by Indosat's president Hari Kartana
and Nava's director for the Asia region Jim Schweigert on
Tuesday, the company said in a statement.
The installment of the cable network is to be finalized in
2002, the company said.
Nava-1 will have a bandwidth of 2.56 terabit per second, which
is equivalent to 40 million sound circuits, it said. (tnt)