Jakarta seeks partial return of spectrum from Cyber Access and another licensee
Indonesia's telecommunications regulator is appealing to the two 3G mobile licensees - one of them Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd's (HTIL) 60 per cent owned Cyber Access - to return some of their 3G bandwidth for a new round of licensing.
Analysts said the country's unresolved 3G spectrum allocation policy could postpone Cyber Access' 3G service launch, initially targeted for the middle of next year.
HTIL bought its controlling stake in Cyber Access in March for US$120 million, despite signs Jakarta might probe the original 2003 tendering process in which Cyber Access acquired its spectrum.
Gatot Broto, spokesman for the Directorate-General of Post and Telecommunications, told the South China Morning Post that the regulator was 'encouraging' Cyber Access and Natrindo Telepon Selular (Natrindo) to each hand back five megahertz (MHz) of 3G spectrum frequency.
This would allow the government to put up the returned bandwidth for a new round of bidding by local operators including Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom) and Indosat. The auction is scheduled for November and another round is slated for 2007.
After concluding its consultation on a rearrangement of Indonesia's 3G frequency allocation on Wednesday, the government said it wanted Cyber Access to use just 10 MHz of its awarded 15 MHz 3G spectrum to save scarce radio frequency.