Telkom offers pulses for late installations

BANDUNG (JP): State-owned PT Telkom promised yesterday to compensate for any delay in installing wireless local loop (WLL) telephone lines in West Java.

Telkom Bandung's manager, Adek Julianwar, said customers would be given 10 free phone pulses for each day's delay.

The offer was only valid if Telkom did not connect telephones on the promised dates, he said.

Adek said the promise came out of Telkom's improved customer service program.

The installation of 1,723 telephone lines in West Java was delayed due to technical problems with the WLL system, he said.

"If the delay continues until the end of the month, the compensation could cost us Rp 217 million (US$90,416)," he said.

He said technicians from Telkom and NEC were currently studying the problem.

"The team is expected to complete the job by the end of July," he said.

WLL is a radio system introduced in West Java mid last year in a bid to boost telecommunications network development in suburban areas.

Telkom is developing the West Java telecommunications network in cooperation with PT Ariawest International, a private firm jointly owned by PT Artimas Kencana Murni, U.S. WEST International and Hong Kong's Asian Infrastructure Fund.

Ariawest must install 500,000 lines in West Java by March 1999, the end of the ongoing Sixth Five-Year Development Program.

The company is also responsible for operating and managing telephone installations in West Java until 2010.

NEC, state-owned PT Inti, Lucent Technologies of the United States and Siemens of Germany are supplying the equipment. (ahy/icn)