Telkom inks deal for new satellite by 2004

Fitri Wulandari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Publicly listed state telecommunications company PT Telkom has appointed U.S.-based, space systems company Orbital Sciences Corporation (Orbital) to build Telkom's first communications satellite since 1999.

Named TELKOM-2, the satellite will cover Indonesia and parts of the Asian region, including the Indian subcontinent, a Telkom statement said last week.

It said TELKOM-2 enabled voice, video and data communications to support Telkom's national and regional communications network.

Applications under TELKOM-2 may include multimedia and high- speed internet services and a satellite telephone network.

The new satellite will replace Telkom's existing Palapa B-4 communications satellite, which has a lifespan until late 2004.

At an estimated cost of US$73 million, TELKOM-2 comes with the same capacity as its predecessor TELKOM-1, which was built by American firm Lockheed Martin for $84.8 million.

TELKOM-1 was launched in 1999 with a coverage area reaching Southeast Asian countries and northern Australia.

It remains unclear whether TELKOM-2 will use the same launch carrier as TELKOM-1. The latter was released from French-based Arianespace's launch carrier, the Ariane 42P rocket.

"The launch mechanism for TELKOM-2 has not been decided and is still going through the tender process," the statement said, adding the launch date was set for late 2004.

Telkom further said it had signed a $14.7 million CDMA contract with Korean Samsung Electronic Co. for the development of fixed wireless telephone systems, comprising 40,000 lines and 16 Base Transceiver Stations.

CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) is built on existing cellular phone infrastructure but offers a broader bandwidth.

The technology allows the development of the so called Third Generation (3G) services for cellular phones such as position location, streaming audio and video.

Under the contract, Surabaya will receive 25,000 lines, Denpasar 10,000 lines, and Balikpapan 5,000 lines.

Telkom and Samsung plan to build the first 5,000 lines for Surabaya by the end of next month. They expect to finalize the remainder by the end of the year.

The statement added that using CDMA would reduce the cost of investment per line as compared to Telkom's existing technology.