Govt abandons new phone bill rates

Govt abandons new phone bill rates

BANDUNG, West Java (JP): The government has canceled the new tariff structure for telephone calls made within the area-codes of Bandung, Semarang, Surabaya, Medan and Ujungpandang.

"We return to the system in which all calls made within the same area code are classified as local calls," the service director of the state-owned domestic telecommunications firm PT Telkom, H. Soeratno, said yesterday.

The return to the old system begins today. The official stated that payments of phone bills made prior to the yesterday's announcement could not be refunded.

The announcement means that all phone calls made within the greater Jakarta area, provided they are within the 021 area code, will be registered as local calls.

Under the newly-abandoned system, all calls covering a distance between 30 kilometers and 200 kilometers were considered long distance calls and billed accordingly, even where a caller had not dialed any area code.

The abandoned system, which was introduced at the beginning of this month, immediately caused a public outcry. That system remains in use, however, in areas outside the six big cities.

Soeratno gave detailed explanation of the tariff system which has been reintroduced for the six big cities.

For the greater metropolitan area, for all local calls made within a 20-kilometer range and made during busy hours -- from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. -- each pulse will last for two minutes. A pulse is priced at Rp 110 (about five U.S. cents).

For all calls made within a distance of 20 kilometers during off-peak hours -- from 3 p.m. to 9 a.m. -- each pulse will last for three minutes.

For calls made within busy hours and over a distance greater than 20 kilometers, each pulse will last for 1.5 minutes.

For calls made during off-peak hours and over a distance greater than 20 kilometers, each pulse will last for two minutes. (hdj/pet/icn)