State-Owned INTI to manufacture cheap tablet?

Yes, according to Indonesian site inilah.com, PT. INTI will manufacture cheap 2G-wifi tablet. President Director Irfan Setiaputra told reporters that the (Indonesian) market demand is not on cheap ordinary mobile phones but rather on smartphones and tablets. It is reported that the chip will be powered by Marvell chip, a well-known prominent fabless design company although on the other hand he signalized also that INTI will work together with IMO, a Chinese manufacturer just as they did together in assembling 50,000 cheap mobile phones per month. I am not sure if IMO uses Marvell chip for this product.
INTI was founded in 1974 as State-Owned Telecommunication Product Manufacturer in city of Bandung, capital of West Java province, 140 km distance from capital Jakarta. In 2006 the company got net profit Rp. 8 billion, in 2007 it fell to one billion rupiah, and in 2008 it reported loss of some 40 billion rupiah. Irfan Setiaputra was "invited" by the then Minister for SOE Sofyan Djalil as part of professionals invited to turn around some ailing SOEs. He was Cisco Indonesia country manager. Soon after taking President Director position he and his team decided to concentrate on raising profits. In 2009 INTI again moved to profit by making two billion rupiah profit, followed by Rp. 4 billion rupiah profit in the next year, and in 2011 the profit skyrocketing to Rp. 10 billion.
Besides manufacturing, INTI is now system-solution based industry, focusing in telecomunnication and IT integration. Some of the projects are INTI Smart Exchange 3000, NMS (Network Management System), SLIMS (Subscriber Line Maintenance System), NGN server, VMS (Video Messaging System), GPA (SNMP-based), Interface Monitoring System for CDMA Network, Disaster Forecasting and Warning System, I-Perisalah, Kwh meter, and ISRA (Indonesia Surveilance Radar).

WiMAX Subscriber Station Made in Indonesia

Yesterday I visited the Microelectronic Research Center at Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), Indonesia. ITB is one of long-serving technical universities in Indonesia. It is founded in 1920 by the Dutch as Bandung Technische Hogeschool and refounded in 1959 by the Government of Indonesia as Institut Teknologi Bandung. Its Microelectronic Center has coined the idea about Bandung High-Tech Valley (BHTV), after Silicon Valley concept in California which connects Academia-Business-Government (ABG). In fact, many universities and technology enterprises are operating in Bandung and many talents both in hardware and software engineering can be found easily in Bandung.

Yesterday the head of the Center, Dr. Trio Adiono showed me a prototype of WiMAX 16d subscriber station. Not as many has predicted that any 16d SS is too big to be operational, it is relatively as small as normal modem. It is surprised me because it has been tested and operating from distance of 10 km with data streaming of 4 Mbps. I think once it can be produced in economical scale and the effective cost per unit is achieved, it will be a great success. By combining this and wifi - which also under research by the Center - it will be able to connect houses and offices in both rural and city areas.
The license of WiMAX in Indonesia is now released only for 16d by the Ministry of Communication and Information. There is no sign yet that the Ministry will offer also license for 16e nor LTE operation. The potential of (nomadic) WiMAX is actually very high actually, as 200 million inhabitants across archipelago are eager for fast yet cheap data communication.

Shale Gas to fill Supply-Demand Gap in Indonesia

Picture source: bbc.co.uk

The Government of the United States is interested in developing shale gas in Indonesia. The Assistant Secretary at the US Energy Department, David Sandalow, emphasized that it needs longer time and relative higher technology than conventional gas exploration and production.

He said that 5-6 years a go the potential has not been known in the US. But now shale gas has contributed 30 percent of US gas production and it would increase to 49 percent in 2035. This changed the US market gas price dramatically. Now the US average gas market is USD 3 per MBTU. This is of course price without any government subsidy.

According to Mr. Edy Hermantoro, Director of Upstream Oil and Gas Business Development in the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, the increasing demand of oil and gas requires energy diversification effort, for instance, shale gas. Combined (conventional) gas production in South East Asia would not be sufficient to fulfill the rising demand and there will be a huge supply-demand gap in 2020. In Indonesia the shale gas potential is projected in many areas: Northern Sumatera, Southern Sumatera, Lampung, Central Java, East Java, Central Kalimantan, Eastern Kalimantan, and West Irian Jaya. It is even planned to have gas pipeline between Kalimantan and Java islands. To attract investors the Government has issued Government Regulation No. 79/2010, in which Cost Recovery is also taken into account. However, this regulation is currently under critic from the Indonesian Petroleum Association (IPA) because it contains negative list that even longer than previous regulation and even includes some non-recoverable items that were recognized by the Government before.

However, if above-mentioned US gas price is to be compared with Indonesian gas price, it should be very cheap. The 2011 gas price in Indonesia is USD 4.00-6.50 for fertilizer producers, 4.55-6.07 for electricity (practically the PLN - Perusahaan Listrik Negara), USD 4.20-5.40 for Gas Trader, and USD 8.12-13.23 for LNG export.

The late Deputy Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Prof. Widjajono Partowidagdo has ever talked that the Indonesian shale gas potential is 574 TSCF, far bigger than CBM which is 453 TCF and conventional natural gas which is 334 TCF. Pertamina even had a plan to import US shale gas.