Telkom denies strong-arming cellular operators
Telkom denies strong-arming cellular operators
JAKARTA (JP): State telecommunications company PT
Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom) has denied an allegation that
it has forced cellular operators to use its transmission
facilities for their domestic long distance calls.
Telkom's director of operations and marketing John Welly said
cellular telephone operators were free to use their own
terminals.
"The allegation that Telkom is still charging cellular
operators with interconnection fees on domestic long distance
calls is also not true," he said last week.
He was commenting on a recent call made by the Directorate
General of Post and Telecommunications urging Telkom to stop
instructing cellular operators to use Telkom's transmission
networks for domestic long distance call services and asking for
payment for the service.
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 domestic long distance calls.
But cellular phone operators complained that Telkom ignored
the ruling and still required them to use its transmission
facilities.
According to the regulation, cellular operators are only
required to pay the interconnection fee to Telkom if they use the
state telecommunications company's transmission facilities.
Cellular operators are now using Telkom's terminals only when
transmitting local, international or domestic long distance calls
which involve Telkom's fixed line phone users, he said.
"Operators will have to use our terminals and pay for the
interconnection fee if they transmit calls to Telkom's fixed line
phone users," he said, adding that cellular operators would have
to do so because they did not have the facilities to allow direct
transmission from cellular phones to a fixed line phone.
Telkom's president A.A. Nasution admitted that the
government's decision to allow cellular operators not to use
Telkom's terminal for domestic long distance calls between
cellular phone users would affect the company's revenues from
interconnection fee.
"But, we will not ask the government to withdraw the
regulation. It will happen sooner or later anyway. We just
consider it as sharing our business opportunities with others,"
he said.
John said the fact that cellular operators would not
contribute interconnection fees to Telkom for their domestic long
distance call services would not significantly affect Telkom's
revenues from interconnection fees.
Telkom received Rp 572.77 billion (US$88 million) in 1997 and
Rp 555.51 billion in 1998 in interconnection revenues.
John said domestic long distance calls only contributed a
small portion in Telkom's entire interconnection revenues.
"The biggest part, or about 80 percent, of our interconnection
fees actually come from international calls," he said. (cst)