Technical error behind failure, says Satelindo

JAKARTA (JP): PT Satelindo announced here Wednesday that a technical error caused its 12-hour network crash on Tuesday.

Company cellular operations director Saleh Gunawan said the failure occurred during Satelindo's network expansion project. The company's 50,000 users in the greater Jakarta area were unable to make and receive calls during the morning, but the system was back in service by the evening.

"It was just due to the wrong plugging while we were installing more equipment to increase our capacity in the greater Jakarta area," he said. He added that Satelindo would not provide compensation to its consumers inconvenienced by the mishap.

He estimated Satelindo lost around Rp 200 million due to the network failure.

Satelindo was the first telecommunications operator of the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) in Indonesia. Ironically, Tuesday coincided with Satelindo's plan to launch its international roaming services to five continents.

"The services are negligible if the domestic network is very poor," a customer complained.

Satelindo's customer base reaches 276,000, with 230,000 subscribers in the greater Jakarta area.

All of the three GSM operators in Indonesia are concentrating their services in the greater Jakarta area as it is considered as key market. However, the network in the area is still erratic, with frequent blank spots and disconnected calls.

Saleh said the problem arose at the mobile switching center (MSC) at the Pusri building in West Jakarta.

Satelindo operates 14 MSCs, each with a capacity of 100,000 lines, in the greater Jakarta area, he said.

"The crash was beyond our expectations and we could do nothing to avoid it," Saleh said. "We can only apologize and promise that we will offer better services. We will operate 22 MSCs soon." (icn)