Syahrial Ali's Blog

JAKARTA, Aug 28 (Reuters) – Indonesia’s second-largest listed telecommunications company, PT Indosat Tbk ISAT.JK, reported on Thursday a 24.9 percent rise in its first-half net profit, outperforming the earnings of its bigger rival Telkom over the period.

Indosat, which signed up 7.9 million new mobile phone users in the first half, close to its 8 million target, revised up its full year target for new users to 12 million.

The firm, which is around 40 percent owned by Qatar Telecom QTEL.QA, said in a statement net profit for the January-June period was 1.06 trillion rupiah ($115.8 million) compared to a revised figure of 845.1 billion rupiah for the previous year. (more…)

As previously written in indonesian-cellular-too-many-carriers?, Indonesia has 11 cellular operators, 5 with GSM based technology and 6 with CDMA based technology.  Every operator needs telecommunication tower. If every operator builds tower for themselves, please imagine how big cities like Jakarta will look like. There will be tower jungles which is very inefficient both in investment and aesthetic.

To overcome this problem, the Indonesian Minister of Telecommunication and Information has proposed the regulation concerning the tower colocation. In this case, many operators can use the same tower for their own telecommunication purposes. The advantages of doing this are: the investment will be less but more efficient and at the same time reducing the number of towers which make the city more beautiful.

There are two different case to implement this regulation. For new towers, the ministry regulation has obliged the operators to apply the rules that the tower should be designed and used for multi-operators. This can lead to minimum investment and less number of tower needed. For current operated tower, the owner has to open the gate for other operators to share the use of their tower. Several additional works shall be done, mainly in tower strengthen.

Others may argue that every operator has its own radio network design which does not always fit with colocated tower.  In this case, they have to adjust their design in order to comply with tower location. The regulator will provide many choices location, then the designer may choose the most suitable one for them.  Please bear in mind that there are 11 operators and tower capability is just for around 2 or 3 operators only. So every sites need around 4 towers to serve all operators.

The colocated tower is not for telecommunication only. The same thing has been implemented in broadcasting, especially television broadcasting. They have got benefit in this case. So, we have to support this regulation.

In both cases, telecommunication and broadcasting, one thing should be considered, i.e. the interference. So, please make a good design so that no party is interfered by others in implementing colocated tower.

In the energy terms, we know well that the oil is a non-renewable resources. It means that it will extinct in the future. In the area of telecommunication, we were frequently informed about radio frequency as a scarce resources. In this case, we have a limited resources that can be used as telecommunication media.

The radio frequency for communication is available from  20 Hz up to 300 GHz. Although it seems we have lots frequency spectrum, not all of them are economical. We still have to find out the best technology for some frequency spectrum.

While radio frequency is applicable to radio communication (cellular, satellite, microwave etc) only, there is one more resources that we are limited for all type of telecommunication technology,- radio communication, wired, etc, namely the phone number. Although we can have unlimited number, it’s cumbersome if we have to use a very long phone number. Currently the shortest phone number in Indonesia is 5 digits (wirelined), while the longest one is 14 digits !!! (cellular).

As a good citizen, we have to monitor the use of scarce resources. Regulator on the other side has to manage them. Without cooperation on both sides, we will experience unoptimized resources. So, don’t mess it up, manage it in orderly manner.

by Sharmila Ganapathy

KUALA LUMPUR: TM International Bhd (TMI) has appointed underwriters for its planned sale of up to 10% of shares in its Indonesian mobile carrier PT Excelcommindo Pratama Tbk (XL), according to an Indonesian daily. Last Friday, The Jakarta Post reported that XL had appointed JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch and Mandiri Sekuritas as underwriters for the XL share sale. Citing a source close to the deal, the Indonesian daily said the underwriters would help XL sell at least 10% of its shares to the public in the fourth quarter in a secondary offering. The daily quoted XL president director Hasnul Suhaimi saying last Thursday that XL aimed to sell a minimum of 10% of its shares. XL is also looking to sell 7,000 units of its base transmission stations (BTS), where it has already short-listed buyers. (more…)

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Tue, 08/19/2008 10:47 AM  |  Business

The government is not concerned over the fierce tariff war in the crowded Indonesian mobile phone industry, as it has yet to lead to a compromise in service standards, officials say.

Information and Communications Minister Muhammad Nuh said over the weekend that the intense competition had been relatively “healthy” and that his ministry would not interfere in such matters.

“We will not impose regulations to try to change things. It’s actually the customers who have benefited the most,” he said. (more…)

Indonesian telecommunication regulator, DG Postel and Indonesian Telcommunication Regulatory Body (BRTI) are continuesly performing the unschedule monitoring of the use of radio frequencies. After making such action in Bali, Makasar and Papua, they continue their actions in East Java. On every monitoring activity, they always find illegal usage of radio frequencies. We have to support this activity for the benefit of all.

Several organizations, most of them were telecommunication operators found guilty because of no radio station’s permission.  The procentage is quite high which should be our concern.

Excelcomindo, Hutchison, Bakrie, Axis are recorded as quilty parties. These operators immediately paid the frequency levy, but according to the Indonesian telecommunication regulation the payment of the frequency levy is not the certification for radio station’s permission. Statisiun Radio permission must meet all orderly administration.

We hope the continuity of unscheduled monitoring for radio frequency usage are maintained by regulator. So that the Indonesian sky is free from illegal radio frequency usage.