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.

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.

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.

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.

WiMAX

Malaysia released the license for WiMAX in 2007. The winner of the tenders were Green Packet, REDtone International, YLT E-Solution and Asiaspace Dotcom. All winners are emerging company.

The winner will each invest up to $86 million in the first three years to roll out services and there was no license fee.

Meanwhile Indonesia will just release the BWA licenses in the earliest 2009. If 3G licenses are for nationwide,  BWA license is on regional basis. There will be 14 regions and each participant can bid for one region only.

Number Portability

Number Portability is the ability for users to retain their existing mobile number when they switch to a new mobile provider.  This means that you can avoid the inconvinience of having to notify friends and relatives that you have changed your number. So, your friends will not loose your contact.

Malaysia has been finished MNP (mobile number potability) implementation and now is on the trial. The program proclaimed by Malaysia Communication Minister on late 2005 has becomed a reality now.

How about Indonesia?

So far there is no sign for number portability proclamation.  According to convergency roadmap  created by a team formed by BTRI last year, the number portability will be started in 2011. It means the service will be ready in about 2013. Still far away.

Perhaps the small country like Malaysia with just few millions people has facilitated their telecommunication regulator to make an advanced decision.

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!.

What are thay looking for exactly? If we inspect the terms and condition, it is mentioned that the tariff is for On-net communication only, for the same network. If you are an Indosat subscribers, the tariff applies for calling to Indosat network. The same is true for XL and Telkomsel.

Yes, the operator can only play with on-net tariff. They don’t touch the off-net tariff. Why? Because the off-net tariff comprise of two parties originating and terminating network and the tariff is already agreed between them.

According to the information from each operator last year, the average revenue per user is around Rp 50,000 - Rp 60,000. By applying the daily tariff as mention above, each operator target of ARPU is still the same. 30 days mean Rp 30,000 and plus the cost of interoperator call then the average ARPU will be around Rp 50,000. So, it means that there are many ways to maintain the revenue by bundling it with variety of tariffing scheme.

PT MCI is really serious with plan. They invited the Minister and director general of satellite to see the development of this satellite. Previous MCI Satellite, Indostar I is the only broadcasting satellite in Indonesia S-band orbit. It serves 56 television channel and 19 network radio with digital technology and MPEG-2 broadcasting. So it serves many Indonesia people.

The new satellite, named Indostar II will have double capacity compare to the previous one. It can serve 120 MPEG-2 technology and 140 MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 technology. It will serve 2 pay TV, local televisions, network television and network radio broadcasting. With countrywide coverage, PT MCI will unify Indonesia through broadcasting.

WiMAX is a broadband wireless technology that is largely supported by the computer and the telecom industry, cost-effective and standard base. It is engineered to deliver the latest type of ubiquitous fixed and mobile services such as VoIP, Information Technology and Video at very low cost. WiMAX systems are able to cover a large geographical area, up to 50 km and to deliver significant bandwidth to end-users up to 72 Mbps (taken from WiMAX forum).

WiMAX has been given many attributes such as:
-Easy to install (because of NLOS requirement)
-Flexible: point to multi point last mile connection or as backhaul to the PSTN
-Worldwide standard
-Cheap
-Spectrum flexibility, etc.

With so many advantages of WiMAX as listed above does it mean that WiMAX will ourperform other telecommunication technology which currently exist in Indonesia?

Let’s look back 3 years ago. At the end of 2005, DG Postel has informed public concerning the release of 3G licenses. Many people had euphoria that with 3G they can have high level mobile life style by making video call, high speed internet access and slow but sure they will leave the current technology 2G and 2.5G.

At the end of January 2006, the licensed of 3G released. It’s almost three years now, the development of 3G is not as successful as it was predicted. Up until now the killer application still the voice communication and short message services which can actually be served by 2G or 2.5G technology.

I believed that the similar thing will happen to WiMAX. The killer application will still be voice although internet will grow extreemly high. As the telecommunication network is almost mature in the urban areas which can serve both voice and internet, then I think WiMAX will only succeed in rural areas. So, the choice of WiMAX for Universal Service Obligation in Indonesia shall be highly respected.

In conclusion, WiMAX will not outperform previous telecommunication technology in urban areas in Indonesia. It may be the first choice in rural area.

Below are the complete result:

§ Best Achievement Award for fixed operator: Bakrie Telecom, runner up: Telkom.

§ Best Achievement Award for Cellular Operator: Indosat, runner up: XL.

§ Best Printed Media : Bisnis Indonesia daily

§ Best Radio and Television: Metro TV

§ Best Online Media: detik.com

§ Lifetime Achievement: Arnold P. Djiwatampu

§ Special Rewrd: ex Director General of DG Postel Djamhari Sirat and ex BRTI members: Suryadi Azis and Soetjipto.

In deciding the winner, BRTI is helped by Frontier Research group.  The methodology for best achievement is by combining two main factors, namely the customer perspectives and the operational performances. The customer perspectives consist of customer satisfactory index and brand popularity. This part weights 55% of total mark.  While the operational performance weights only 45% which consist of network performance and service performance.

Actually there are at least 2 main reasons why people tend to have more than one mobile phone. The first reason is the tariff. Both GSM and CDMA have quite different tariffing scheme. People still feel that the GSM tariff is more expensive than CDMA tariff. Hence, everyone will have at least 1 GSM mobile and 1 CDMA mobile . GSM phone is used to receive a call and to maintain contact with other people. For your information, GSM technology is implemented earlier than CDMA in Indonesia, so that more people have GSM mobiles than CDMA mobiles. Meanwhile, CDMA is used to make a call because the tariff is so cheap.

Another important reason to have a second mobile phone is business related issue. When you have a business with one operator than operator will ask you to have that operator phone number. Their main argument for this is: You make a business with our operator, so that you have to use our network. Please imagine how many mobile phones you should have if you want to make business with all mobile telecommunication operators in Indonesia. Indonesia has 5 GSM & 3G operators and 6 CDMA operators.

Other reasons that people add other mobile phone are - to have better coverage, as a collection, and so on.

Then, we can conclude that Indonesia mobile density is far below 50%.