PT Dayamitra Telekomunikasi Tbk or Mitratel will focus on developing a telecommunications tower ecosystem (tower). This business starts from the business of building towers, fiber optics, providing power supply from solar panels and entering the edge computing area to support 5G services. The business development step is considered to increase the company's revenue and profit compared to only operating and building a tower business. This was conveyed by the Investment Director of Mitratel Hendra Purnama in a meeting with investors at the SOE International Conference which is part of the Road to G20 agenda which will take place in Nusa Dua Bali on 17-18 October 2022. Hendra added that Mitratel, which is currently supported by the Telkom Group, has a strong team throughout Indonesia so that it has more capabilities than other similar companies. "This is a good opportunity in 2023, with the tower business and supported by fiber optic, edge computing, and power to tower, the margins obtained from the tower industry are more attractive than just towers," said Hendra, Tuesday (10/25/2022).
Furthermore, Hendra explained, in terms of financial performance, Mitratel's revenue this year is expected to increase by around 12%, and EBITDA is expected to increase by about 15%. Mitratel organically targets the expansion of 1,000 towers, and around 2,500 for collocations, in addition to deploying 9,000 km of fiber optic to support high-quality and high-capacity connectivity. He added that currently Mitratel has several competitive advantages. First, in terms of coverage, Mitratel has 35,000 towers spread throughout Indonesia, of which about 58% are outside Java. This will add attraction for cellular operators if they want to expand outside Java. “They (cellular operators) do not need to build another tower, they just need to occupy (collocation) to our existing tower, because building a tower will take quite a long time. That's the advantage of our towers that are spread throughout Indonesia," he added. In addition, most of the Mitratel towers have been connected using a fiber optic network. "Fiber optics is a solution to increase bandwidth capacity and reduce latency," he explained. The next solution, continued Hendra, Mitratel is collaborating with Telkomsat to provide connectivity solutions using satellite services. According to him, with the support of connectivity via satellite, tower construction can be carried out anywhere, including in remote area locations, with quite good quality. "4G services can still be enjoyed, you can enjoy video conferencing, video streaming and others, because it has high bandwidth and low latency," explained Hendra. Meanwhile, on the same occasion, Hendra said that the company's progress so far has proven its vision and mission in implementing the principles of environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG). He explained that in the environmental field, Mitratel has more than 600 off-grid towers that use solar panels. Furthermore, the company is currently conducting research and development to use solar panels as a power source in ongrid locations with a hybrid model. With the development of these additional services, Mitratel is not only the largest telecommunications tower company in Indonesia but also the tower company with the most complete services in Indonesia. Mitratel is ready to become the market leader for telecommunications tower companies in welcoming the 5G era in Indonesia.
