Syahrial Ali’s Blog

Indonesian Minister of Communication and Information has appointed PT Bakrie Telecom as the winner for the selection of long distance service provider using fixed network on December 16, 2008. Previously Bakrietel competed with Mobile-8 for this license. However, Mobile-8 was not really serious when it did not hand in the bid bond. So, Bakrietel just compete with them selves for administration completeness and they pass.

As the winner, Bakrietel should hand in the performance bond on January 9th, 2009 at the latest. If they fail to do that, then their bid bond will be cashed in by the selection committee. This case will not eliminate Bakrietel obligation to hand in the performance bond. The principal license will be released on January 23rd, 2009.

Last year, Bakrietel also won the license of international call service provider. It completes the previous nationwide license of fixed wireless access with limited mobility. Congratulation for Bakrietel. They already have several tools for success.

A shocking news released by Qualcomm last November when the company decided to stop the UMB (Ultra Mobile Broadband) development. The company will now focus on developing Long Term Evolution (LTE) based platforms - which has been backed by the majority of WCDMA based mobile operators as their network upgrade path.

Previously Qualcomm is one of the competing participant in 4G technology development by using its own product, UMB. When they stop the UMB, the race down to LTE and WiMAX. In this race, WiMAX is ahead in the market as several countries have launched their WiMAX systems while LTE is still under trial. LTE will be in commercial in 2009.

As a supporter, Qualcomm is really serious with LTE. They have planned to start sampling multi-mode chips including LTE in the second quarter of 2009. Then, the competition for 4G service is getting high.

The rumor that Sinar Mas wants to buy Bakrietel share  was heard for a long time. However, both parties have been denied it frequently. Kontan Daily reported today that Sinar Mas has bought Bakrietel for 6.2% of share or equal to 1.76 billion of share. According to BEI data, Sinar Mas has done it last month.

If calculated according to the Bakrietel price during last November, then Sinar Mas has been invested around IDR 100 billion. After entering Bakrietel, then share composition of Bakrietel are Bakrie & Brother: 22.43%; Credit Suisse Singapore Branch: 8.08%; Sinar Mas: 6.2%; and the rest owned by public.

For your information, Bakrietel is a company which has a CDMA lisence under the product name: ESIA. Last year Bakrietel just won International Call Service Provider, and Bakrietel is about to win National Long Distance Call Service Provider.

Malaysia is a neighbor country of Indonesia. It has 2 separate lands, mainland and north Malaysia in Kalimantan. In several telecommunication regulations, Malaysia is ahead of Indonesia. Let’s see the 3 advanced cases below: 3G, WiMAX and Number Portability.

3G:

Malaysia released 3G licenses since July 2002, far before Indonesia who release the licensed on early 2006. Malaysia allocated 3 blocks, but at the tender the winners were only 2 companies namely: Telekom Malaysia  dan UMTS Sdn Bhd.  Both companies were already operated. On November 2006, the 3rd and 4th licenses were released to TIME dotcom Sdn Bhd and MiTV. (more…)

As written in previous posting about BWA tender in Indonesia, the Indonesian Telecommunication Regulator in its white paper draft about BWA plan to release the BWA license before the end of the year. However most probably this plan will be postponed. This could be seen from the first process stage namely taking of the tender document that shall be done in the 4th week of November and up until now it is not announced yet.

Suppose the document will be issued this week and the process run smoothly, then the earliest tender will be started at the beginning of this coming January 2009. But as is already known, the end year is busy periods that are accompanied with the several holidays, and this time are Idhul Adha, Christmas and New Year. As a result the effective length of service far decreased. Considering all of these, the earliest BWA tender will be realised this coming February 2009. If this happened then it is precisely three years after the tender 3G that was carried out at the beginning of 2006.

The regulator of the Indonesian Telecommunications applies the elegant way to release the license with many interested parties, namely tender. We support every effort that put the transparancy and fairness. Congratulation to Indonesian Telecommunication Regulator!.