Telkom, Indosat agree on codes

Indonesia's two largest telecommunications companies, PT Telkom and PT Indosat, signed on Friday an agreement on local long- distance and international access codes. Whereby, Telkom customers can use Indosat's international access codes of 001 and 008.

Likewise, Indosat customers can use Telkom's international and local long-distance access codes. The agreement will not change the existing local long-distance access codes, at least for the next five years.

The government had issued a regulation that would have changed the local long-distance access codes for both operators: 017 for Telkom and 011 for Indosat. Telkom has opposed the regulation, arguing it would cost the firm Rp 3.5 trillion to change its system to comply with the regulation. -- JP