120,000 phone lines returned to Telkom

JAKARTA (JP): About 120,000 phone lines in the capital were returned to state-owned telecommunications operator PT Telkom last year for various reasons, an executive at the firm said on Sunday.

Joko Dewoto, head of systems and marketing policy affairs at Telkom's Jakarta office, said that most of the phone lines were returned by companies with unpaid phone bills. The May riots and the closure of a number of banks were also reasons cited for the returned phone lines.

"The number of returned lines was huge. In previous years this number only reached an average of 10,000 to 20,000 lines," Joko told The Jakarta Post.

"The crisis is hitting everywhere... it (a phone line) probably became too expensive for some companies."

"Some switched to operators like Ratelindo, which offer cheaper line rentals," Joko said.

Separately, Doddy Amerudien, vice president for communications at the Bandung-based Telkom, said on Sunday that his company was having trouble with the operational and maintenance costs of telephone lines.

"Today it costs Rp 65,000 a month for Telkom to maintain a phone line, up from Rp 44,000 before the crisis started to hit us in July 1997," Doddy told the Post.

The company abruptly announced on Jan. 30 that it planned to raise telephone tariffs based on the distance and time of calls effective Feb. 1.

Doddy said earlier that the hike was overdue because it had been postponed since 1995.

The new phone tariffs stipulated in ministerial decree No. 104/1994 were supposed to take effect on Jan. 1, 1995, across Indonesia, Doddy said from Bandung.

Under the new tariff system, callers are charged Rp 180 per seven seconds if calls are made between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., between a 30-kilometer and 200-kilometer radius.

Before the hike, callers were charged Rp 145 per 120 seconds anytime of the day, if calls were between a 20-kilometer and 200- kilometer radius. (ylt)