Telkom asked to heed new transmission ruling

Telkom asked to heed new transmission ruling

JAKARTA (JP): Director General of Post and Telecommunications
Sasmito Dirdjo said on Wednesday that PT Telkom no longer held
the right to require cellular operators to use its transmission
networks for domestic long distance (SLJJ) service.

Sasmito said cellular operators were only required to use the
state telecommunications company's fixed line transmission
networks when serving local calls.

Mobile phone operators are now free to use their own
transmission facilities when they service domestic long-distance
calls.

According to a decree issued by the Minister of Communications
in May this year, cellular operators can use their own Mobile
Switching Center (MSC) instead of Telkom's fixed line trunk
exchange terminals when serving SLJJ calls.

But cellular phone operators complain that Telkom ignores the
ruling and still requires them to use the transmission facilities
for a fee.

"We are aware that the minister's decree will cause Telkom to
lose its opportunity to gain interconnection revenues from
cellular operators," Sasmito said.

The loss would not be significant and would be offset by
Telkom's continuing right to collect the interconnection fee for
local calls and international calls made by cellular and other
telecommunications providers, Sasmito added.

Telkom received Rp 572.77 billion (US$88 million) in 1997 and
Rp 555.51 billion in 1998 in interconnection revenues.

Cellular operators claim that Telkom still charged them an
interconnection fee of Rp 55 per minute for local or SLJJ calls.

An executive of the Association of Cellular Telecommunication
Indonesia (ATSI), Rudiantara, said cellular operators expected
Telkom to comply with the regulation.

He said Telkom should not be worried about losing the entire
interconnection revenues from the cellular sector because
cellular operators would still utilize Telkom's network for local
calls.

"We will still use Telkom's network for local calls and pay
for the interconnection fee, because we don't have the
infrastructure to support transmission to customers which use
Telkom's fixed line telephones."

He added that cellular operators might also use Telkom's
services while transmitting SLJJ or international calls involving
users of Telkom's fixed line telephones.

Eman Soemantri, the head of the telecommunications and
information supervision department, estimated Telkom would lose
about 15 percent of its total SLJJ interconnection revenues.

There are currently seven cellular phone network providers in
the country, serving three systems: the Advanced Mobile Phone
System (AMPS), the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM)
and the Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) system. They serve about1.4
million active cellular phone users. (cst)