Tsunami a gold mine for phone sellers
Tsunami a gold mine for phone sellers
A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post/Medan
Dicky, a sales executive at telecommunication company PT Pasifik Satelit Nusantara (PSN), was extremely busy on Tuesday night. He wandered around the company's office in the plush Mega Kuningan area, South Jakarta, organizing sales along with his office colleagues. He frequently spoke to clients using his mobile phone.
He was not alone. Many other company employees were also busy serving customers.
Dicky's colleague Galih was handling a client from a newspaper who was trying to establish a connection between his satellite cell-phone and his laptop. A security guard came in through the front door bringing food for dinner.
Office employees were so busy that they had no time to get their own dinner.
Other sales staff went to the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport to pick up additional supplies of satellite cell-phones sent from Batam. Clients kept pouring into the office until 9 p.m, including two middle-ranking military officers who ordered several satellite cell-phones for their unit's operations in Aceh.
The office normally closes for business at 5 p.m.
The rush began on Monday, one day after a tsunami devastated Aceh. Dicky said that demand for satellite cell-phones sky- rocketed with many government offices deploying staff to help victims of the disaster in the province.
Other buyers were from big companies and relief organizations. "I've never experienced a situation like this before," said Galih, who has been working for the company for three years.
The demand for satellite cell-phones increased dramatically after Sunday's devastating tsunami in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam cut power and telephone lines across the province. All conventional cell-phones and fixed phone lines were down.
PSN, established 13 years ago and owned partly by state-owned telecommunication company PT Telkom, benefited from the telecommunications failure, as it is the only company in the country that sells and distributes satellite cell-phones.
"On Monday our office in Mega Kuningan sold 48 satellite cell- phones. On normal days we only sell between six and eight," said Dicky.
Similar high demand was also experienced by a cell phone trader in Roxy Mas Mall, the most popular cell-phone trading center in Jakarta.
"We sold 20 satellite cell-phones on Monday alone. Normally we'd only sell several a month," said Darwis, a cell-phone trader, who expected that demand for satellite cell-phones to be sustained for another few days.
One buyer, Otis Dumatubun, was perplexed with the high demand for satellite cell-phones. He had paid a deposit on Tuesday, but the trader said that they would only hold the phone for a day. "If you don't buy the phone by Wednesday then you will lose the deposit," he quoted the trader as saying.
A new satellite cell-phone costs Rp 5.5 million, while a secondhand one might cost Rp 4.5 million. Satellite cell-phone's are not used much by the public due to the high cost of phone calls.
A trader described that you only need dial the phone and say one word and it will cost you some Rp 5,000 (U.S.$0.53). Satellite cell-phone's are popular among geologists, miners and surveyors whose jobs take them out of reach of conventional phones. Anyone having such a phone can be contacted anywhere on earth, whether it be the North Pole or the Sahara.
With its broad coverage a satellite cell-phone has become one of the most sought after items by people involved in disaster relief efforts in Aceh province.
Dicky was happy with the sales bonanza, but quickly added: "We hope the disaster will be the last. We hope such a thing will never hit our country again."