Telkom, Alcatel agree to push telecommuting

JAKARTA (JP): PT Alcatel Indonesia and PT Telkom Indonesia have agreed to jointly promote telecommuting concepts to the Indonesian community.

Under the agreement signed here early this week, the two companies will provide complete-integrated satellite office-based telecommuting solutions.

Alcatel president Mazen Hamadallah said potential customers would be global companies, consultants, design and engineering businesses, software houses, the media and other publishing concerns and travel bureaus. Other potential customers would be enterprises using on-line services like the banking industry.

Telecommuting systems allow business people to continue working and communicating with their head office when they are traveling.

"Supported by the latest computers and telecommunications technology, telecommuting will enable professionals to work from a distance, such as from home, while traveling or from other areas outside their offices," he said.

Hamadallah said benefits of the project would include increasing people's productivity by saving on commuting time to the office, more efficient office space use, flexibility of time used outside office hours and variety of work environments.

He said that under the agreement, which was signed on the sidelines of Telkom's initiated Techno Pre-Eminence Conference 1999, Alcatel would provide all the telecommunications networking equipment to the customers' premises and build the communication link between head and branch offices.

He said the system and technology provided for the project by Alcatel would include wireless access solutions, satellite communication ground systems, enterprise and data solutions, integrated voice over Internet protocol solutions and network management systems. (cst)