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)