Indonesia’s BTEL to Expand Coverage

Publicly listed cellular phone provider PT Bakrie Telecom, which operates the CDMA-based esia mobile phone service, plans to expand its coverage to 15 cities in Banten and West Java next month in a bid to carve itself out a bigger share of the mobile phone market.

With coverage confined to only two cities — Indonesian capital city Jakarta and Bandung — at present, the firm hopes the expansion will increase its subscriber base to 1.3 million by the end of this year from about one million at present.

The company, a subsidiary of the widely diversified Bakrie & Brothers, is still waiting for the results of its feasibility studies and the outcome of the talks with PT Indosat before deciding to which cities it will expand to next.

Bakrie Telecom president director Anindya N. Bakrie said Thursday that the esia talk-time campaign launched last September had increased the number of new customers signing up to an average of 3,000 customers per day.

He said that with the increase in subscribers, in 2005 the company had managed to book Rp 244 billion (about US$25.6 million) in net revenue, 50.7 percent higher than the previous year’s Rp 162 billion.

The company, which was listed on the Jakarta Stock Exchange last February, had yet to book an annual profit due to the high level of capital expenditure involved in expanding its network.

He said that Bakrie Telecom’s strategy in increasing its market share was to provide affordable CDMA services in collaboration with mobile phone manufacturers, such as Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Nexian.

In addition, BTEL will soon launch 1xEV-DO-based 3G services, Anindya told 3GWeek.NET last month.

In near future, BTEL will implement a trial of 1xEV-DO in selected areas in the capital city Jakarta.

A direct evolution of the CDMA2000 third-generation (3G) wireless standards, CDMA2000 1xEV-DO enables high-speed wireless connectivity comparable to wired broadband.

BTEL has been one of the pioneers in Indonesia ’s telecommunication industry. It has certainly been the leader in providing affordable fixed wireless services to customers, particularly those in the underserviced areas.

Having adopted the more spectrum efficient CDMA technology, BTEL is now poised to become a nationwide operator with its Esia brand. “Our business goal-rapid growth through provision of low-cost services to the masses–has dictated our choice of the CDMA2000 1x technology,” Anindya said.

There are about 45 million people using mobile phones in the country at present, and more than 5 million of them use CDMA 20001x.

Other CDMA providers in Indonesia are PT Telkom with Telkomflexi, PT Mobile-8 Telecom with Fren, and PT Indosat with Star-one. [3G!]

Photo’s caption: BTEL’s President Director Anindya Novyan Bakrie (left), a subscriber and President Comissioner Bobby Gafur Sulistyo Umar

Source: The Jakarta Post | 3GWeek.NET | BTEL’s Public Expose