Asia Pacific Watch

October 8, 2002
Telkomsel Indonesia launches GPRS solution supplied by Nokia

INDONESIA -- Indonesia's leading cellular operator Telkomsel and Nokia have signed a contract for the nationwide supply of Nokia's GPRS core network solution. As a result, Telkomsel commercially launched its first GPRS services on 8 October, 2002.

Under the agreement, Nokia provides the GPRS core network, Charging Gateway, Nokia Terminal Management Server (NTMS) and several applications such as MMS cartoons, comics, images/photos and polyphonic ringing tones. Telkomsel will first introduce GPRS services in the country's capital Jakarta, Bali island, Batam island and the country's second city Surabaya, soon to be followed by other large cities such as Medan, Pekanbaru, Semarang and Yogyakarta.

Additionally, Nokia delivers, on a turnkey basis, GPRS network planning, installation and integration services, multivendor interoperability testing (IOT), charging gateway integration to Telkomsel's existing billing system, training and the facilitation of applications development. With Nokia's GPRS solution, Telkomsel will be able to provide higher-speed data communications to its subscribers - offering packet switched data through the enhanced GSM network.

PT Telekomunikasi Selular (Telkomsel) is the market leader in cellular services (mobile operator) in Indonesia, having a share of more than 50 percent of the total Indonesian cellular market, which consists of over 9 million active users and nine operators. It serves over 5 million customers, 80 percent of which are prepaid users, on a nationwide network covering about 80 percent of the population of this fourth most populous country in the world. It is jointly owned by PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia 65 percent and Singapore Telecom 35 percent.