Indonesia’s XL launches commercial 3G

Indonesia’s third-largest GSM operator and a subsidiary of Telekom Malaysia, PT Excelcomindo Pratama Tbk (XL), today launched a 3G-based service, XL3G, in Jakarta.

This makes Indonesia the third Southeast Asian nation, after Singapore and Malaysia, to launch 3G services commercially.

XL is the country’s second 3G operator after PT Telkomsel, the biggest GSM operator, which launched a similar service last month. PT Indosat, the country’s second-biggest operator, reported that it will offer commercial 3G in November.

“XL presents XL3G to the people of Indonesia as proof of our commitment to become the preferred telecommunications provider in the country and to celebrate the 10th anniversary of XL,” stated Hasnul Suhaimi, president director of XL.

XL3G, which passed the Goverment’s Operational Feasibility Test (ULO) on September 12 and 14, will initially be introduced in six Indonesian cities: Jakarta, Medan, Batam, Bandung, Surabaya and Denpasar. All prepaid’s Bebas and postpaid’s Xplor users in those cities have been able to trial several XL3G applications since September 18 free of charge.

The operator prepares free 10,000 XL3G SIM cards at selected XL Centers, available to the first 10,000 customers who visit any of the XL3G kiosk at the 10 XL Centers. The rest of the customers can get the card by paying Rp20,000 (about US$2).

XL’s customers can access 3G services while roaming in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Australia by selecting XL’s 3G international roaming partner’s network–Celcom (Malaysia), M1 (Singapore), Telstra (Australia) and Hong Kong CSL (Hong Kong). XL’s other 3G international roaming partner operators such as SmarTone (Hong Kong), Hutchison 3G (Australia) and Hutchison 3G (Hong Kong) will be launched next month.

For data access, XL provides about 100 HSDPA hotspots in Jakarta and other cities. That’s why the operator has declared that it is the first with the widest and fastest 3G network in Indonesia.

According to Suhaimi, the total invesment for XL3G is about US$100 million. “XL3G will bring us to experience the world of XL Life Unlimitted: A world of high-speed, reliable mobile communication,” he added.

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