Indosat ARPU down 7%

Indonesia's second largest telecoms firm by revenues, PT Indosat, says average revenue per mobile phone user (ARPU) at its mobile division Satelindo fell 7% to USD6.52 in the first half of the year, as competition and price cutting undermined its performance. On a more positive note, the company said it was on course to meet its full-year target of 23 million mobile phone users, compared with 16.7 million users at the end of 2006. Satelindo had 20 million users at the enf of June, up 44$, or 3.3 million, year-on-year.

In a separate story, Indosat today announced it has awarded Ericsson a network expansion contract to improve its W-CDMA/HSPA coverage in greater Jakarta. Under the deal, the Swedish vendor will supply core, radio access network and transmission equipment, covering network design, deployment, integration, performance and improvement of Satelindo’s 3G/3.5G networks. The latest announcement is an extension to an earlier contract signed by the two companies in 2006 and will ultimately result in connection speeds of up to 14.4Mbps (downlink) and 1.8Mbps (uplink) by the end of 2007. It is understood that Ericsson will also be upgrading Satelindo’s existing 3G infrastructure to make it IP ready, thus paving the way for Indosat’s migration to an all-IP network.