Reaching Out to Touch East Asia : Pacific Telesis and others race to tap the market with satellites and cable.

Primitive in some places and on technology’s cutting edge in others, East Asia is the world’s hottest telecommunications market.

In such countries as Indonesia and the Philippines, there is less than one telephone line for every 100 people. Telecommunications experts say that means there eventually will be lucrative contracts for companies that can supply the sorely needed phone systems.

Elsewhere in the region--particularly in Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore--sophisticated phone customers are transmitting computer data between far-flung operations and using other advanced telecommunications services.

For both of those reasons, East Asia is a magnet for expansion-minded telecommunications companies. And among the emerging competitors in the market is Pacific Telesis Group, the parent of Pacific Bell.

After a two-year struggle, Pacific Telesis this week won a federal judge’s permission to acquire up to a 10% stake in a new venture called International Digital Communications. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Harold H. Greene marked the first time since the breakup of the Bell telephone system in 1984 that any of the seven “Baby Bell” regional phone companies were cleared to participate in a major overseas long-distance venture.

“This is our opportunity to get our foot in the door,” said Pacific Telesis spokeswoman Susan Rosenberg.

IDC will build and operate a fiber-optic cable spanning 6,100 miles of the northern Pacific from Honshu, Japan’s biggest island, to Pacific City, Ore. It is expected to be completed by 1991.

Meanwhile, IDC plans to use satellites and other leased circuits rimming the Pacific to compete for calls heading in all directions from Japan.

“This is not so much the Japan-U.S. market but Japan worldwide,” said Jan Neels, president of Pacific Telesis International, the unit of the San Francisco-based company that will participate in IDC with an initial stake of 8.5%.

But even if Pacific Telesis is a leader among the Baby Bells, it is hardly ahead of the competition. IDC will face a stiff challenge from Kokusai Denshin Denwa (KDD), until now the only long-distance company working the billion-dollar international sector of Japan’s telecommunications market, which is growing 20% a year.

KDD also is participating with American Telephone & Telegraph and 30 other companies and government agencies in a rival consortium that is close to completing construction on a more southerly transpacific cable. All told, Pacific Telesis’ IDC venture will be playing the same sort of role that MCI Communications has played against AT&T; in the U.S. long-distance business.

While Pacific Telesis’ investment in IDC is a small one--a fact that helped in win Judge Greene’s approval--it is secure, said William H. Davidson, a USC professor who specializes in international business.

“There’s money (to pay) up front,” Davidson acknowledged, “but anybody in the world that had the money would make this investment.”

Industry analyst Robert B. Morris III of Goldman, Sachs & Co. said the investment gives Pacific Telesis the chance to learn about the international telecommunications business “while at the same time making money.”

The optimism about Pacific Telesis’ venture stems from the general optimism over the future of East Asia’s telecommunications market, particularly in the two years since Japan began opening its international telecommunications business. A market that had been growing at a healthy 11% annual clip, zoomed 24% last year, Bruce Crockett, president of Comsat World Systems, said in a recent interview.

That growth appears sure to continue, say officials at El Segundo-based Infonet, a firm that offers computer and communications services in 32 countries.

“We anticipate tremendous growth as a result of deregulation in Asian Pacific telecommunications,” said Jose Collazo, president of Infonet. “The Japanese and Asian Pacific businesses will move rapidly to find global communications solutions.”

Pacific Telesis and its partners in IDC--a group consisting mainly of Japanese firms but also including Britain’s venerable Cable & Wireless PLC--aren’t the only ones expected to benefit. For instance, IDB Communications, which started five years ago by providing facilities for live radio broadcasts of sports events by satellite, now aims a part of the forest of satellite dishes and antennas crowded onto a lot at its headquarters on the edge of Culver City out over the Pacific.

IDB Communications made its Asian debut last year by providing voice and data services for media covering September’s Seoul Olympics. It intends to continue offering satellite services for news agencies, radio and television and other businesses throughout the area, said the firm’s founder and president, Jeffrey P. Sudikoff.

While some experts have suggested that the era of communications satellites may be peaking and the future lies with extension of optical fiber cables, many industry executives disagree. They say that cable and satellite transmissions are becoming more complementary than competitive. And Davidson of USC added that the available capacity on both satellites and international cables is being absorbed almost as soon as it becomes available.

Moreover, the increased number of players is reducing transmission prices, further fueling growth, said Sudikoff. And there are many places--especially around the Pacific--that are bypassed by cables but can be reached easily by installing small “earth stations” providing circuits via satellite to the rest of the world.

“That’s what satellites are good at: adding the other places at no extra cost,” said Sudikoff. “Cable only goes where it goes, and its costs increase with distance.”