Telkom, Sofrecom to set up JVC

JAKARTA (JP): State domestic telecommunications company PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom) plans to set up a joint venture company with France's Sofrecom.

The company's director of operations and marketing, Dadad Kustiwa, said yesterday the joint venture was necessary to improve Indonesia's telecommunication services.

"Domestic firms including Astra Graphia would probably involve in the joint venture company," he said.

He refused to give further details about the plan.

Meanwhile, Telkom has expanded its computerized system to administer and manage its telephone network and customer services.

"The computerized customer management system, which adopts Girafe technology, is designed to improve Telkom's efficiency and customer services," he said after the launching of the system in Telkom's West Jakarta office.

The customer management system, dubbed Siska from its Indonesian acronym, was launched the secretary-general of the Ministry of Tourism, Post and Telecommunication, Jonathan L. Parapak.

Kustiwa said Telkom would apply the customer management system in the five regions where telecommunications networks were being operated by private firms until 2010.

Parapak encouraged Telkom to use the joint venture firm to penetrate international markets.

"I hope the joint venture company won't deal with domestic business only, but also market the product to Africa, Asia or even developed countries," he said.

Sofrecom's director for the Siska project, Herve Suquet, said the joint venture company was expected to be incorporated by the end of this year.

"We will be a minority shareholders in the joint venture company which will also involve other Indonesians parties," he said.

The joint venture would also provide telecommunications consultation services, he said.

He said Sofrecom, a subsidiary of France Telecom, had also developed similar projects using the Girafe technology in several countries including Thailand, South Africa and several South American countries.

The Siska system is designed to reduce the time taken to give new customers a phone connection, speed up the repair of faulty lines and enable Telkom to issue more detailed bills to its customers.

Siska said the system would not increase customers' costs.

The system, which is based on the Girafe customer management system developed in Paris, was chosen by Telkom in 1994.

Dadad said that after Siska was installed at Telkom's South Jakarta office complaints dropped to 2,000 in the second semester last year from 12,000 in the previous semester.

He said the cost of implementing the system across the city and in Surabaya, East Java, was about Rp 80 billion (US$33.2 million).

"We project that by the end of 1998, the Siska system will cover all areas within the greater Jakarta area and East Java," he said.

Loans from the World Bank provided the Rp 80 billion. (icn)