Telkom To Sue Lapindo
Wednesday, 31 January, 2007 | 15:12 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk. (Telkom) is to put in a claim for Rp18 billion in compensation from Lapindo Brantas Inc for the damage of network infrastructure and the lost of income potential from customers due to the hot mudflow disaster in Sidoarjo, East Java.

Guntur Siregar, Telkom’s Consumer Director, explained that Telkom had suffered losses of around Rp10 billion due to network infrastructure damage and Rp8 billion due to a loss of one year’s income from 1,800 customers whose houses were ruined.

In the mudflow disaster area, there has been damage to two of Telkom’s network stations its fiber optic cable network.

Guntur explained that Telkom’s telephone networks in the area were backed up by two automatic telephone centers (STO), one in Sidoarjo capable of serving 50,000 telephone lines, and the other in Pandaan with a 15,000 telephone lines capacity.

“Currently, we’re still listing the inventory of broken infrastructure and losses that may increase due to the mudflows that are continuing,” said Guntur during a hearing with the House of Representatives (DPR) Commission for Budget, yesterday (30/1).

The company will provide compensation to customers in the form of Flexi wireless house phone services.

Currently Telkom has provided compensation of Flexi telephone connections to 500 houses near the mudflow location.

Telkom has also installed 20 public phones in evacuation areas.

Eko Nopiansyah