USO Projects Toughest in Papua & Maluku

Monday, 03 December, 2007 | 16:06 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: Asia Cellular Satellite (AceS) has said it believes that Papua, West Irian, Maluku and North Maluku are the toughest areas to build universal service obligation (USO) or regional telephone projects.

This was because there were no adequate road facilities or transportation in these areas.

Rian Alisjahbana, President Director of AceS, said the government was expected to build facilities and infrastructure in these areas soon.

In addition, 25 percent of the villages included in this project do not yet have electricity.

PT PLN, the State Electricity Company, is only planning that all villages will have electricity by 2020.

According to AceS President Commissioner Adi R. Adiwoso, the government intends to apply very small aperture terminal (VSAT) technology for this project.

The reason is VSAT does not require any cable, radio or base terminal system infrastructure.

However, said Adi, VSAT can only be used in areas that are connected to quite large amounts of electricity.

Areas not connected to electricity can use portable fixed satellite telephones.

As regards areas connected to electricity but are remote, wireless Internet protocol technology is more appropriate.

For areas with cellular operator scope, network extension is all that still needs to be done.

For this, AceS has already prepared a cooperation agreement with PT Exelcomindo Pratama Tbk and PT Bakrie Telecom Tbk.

There are 38,000 villages included in the USO projects that have different problems, so one technology cannot be used for all of them.

Purborini