High bills give new headache to phone users

High bills give new headache to phone users

JAKARTA (JP): Despite grumbles, telephone owners tolerated
increases in their bills in January, and then again in April,
when a 10 percent hike was applied.

Recently, the state telephone monopoly PT Telkom planned to
apply interlocal charges on calls distanced more than 30
kilometers out from callers in Greater Jakarta.

The plan is still being debated, but some Telkom customers
have already found they have to pay double the usual rate.

Rita, a housewife, is now suffering a serious headache. Telkom
blocked her telephone lines from July 20, and she can only
receive calls until the bills are settled.

"I usually pay between Rp 200,000 and Rp 300,000 a month
(including long distance calls), but now, I have to pay Rp
600,000. It's impossible," said the resident of Cibubur, East
Jakarta. "And amazingly, we left the house for about a month for
a vacation," she said, speculating that someone outside the house
was using their line.

Another customer, K. Subagyo, said that apart from calling his
family in Bandung, West Java, most of his calls from home
involved business matters.

"But if the rate keeps increasing, it will be difficult to
pay. Living costs are already hard and business is not as
promising as usual," the marketing executive said.

Subagyo, who rents a house in Bendungan Hilir, Central
Jakarta, said he has already paid his bill, for fear of Telkom
cutting his line. He said he would try to limit his calls.

The Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) has said that from
January to June, they received 76 complaints regarding mobile and
fixed phones. About 60 percent, or 45 of these complaints, were
on unexpectedly high Telkom bills, a YLKI staffer said.

"Many consumers think that Telkom has started increasing the
rates again," said the foundation's executive director, Zumrotin
K. Soesilo.

Telkom has yet to respond to claims that customers are being
charged more than what they should, and only confirmed that the
planned increase regarding Greater Jakarta has not been applied.

Telkom president Asman A. Nasution has pointed out that the
hikes in January and in April did not incorporated the rupiah's
depreciation. The second tariff revision was still based on an
exchange rate of Rp 5,000 to US$1, he said.

Zumrotin dismissed their argument to justify further
increases, through recent plans to apply interlocal rates on
local calls over distances of more than 30 km from Greater
Jakarta.

"The government is expected not to use the depreciation to
justify the increases because people are already troubled by
sharply rising prices," she said.

In January, the government increased the local rate by 8.7
percent to Rp 125 per pulse, but cut interlocal rates by 10.2
percent to Rp 97 per pulse. One pulse equals 90 seconds, two
minutes or three minutes, depending on the distance over which a
phone call is made.

Then in April, local phone rates were increased by 10 percent
for household subscribers and last month, a maximum of 15 percent
for business subscribers.

In the new plan, calls made from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. and from 8
p.m. to 11 p.m., will be charged Rp 145 per 17.8 seconds. Calls
made between 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. will be
charged Rp 145 per 8.98 seconds.

The most expensive calls are those made between 8 a.m. and 6
p.m., which is Rp 145 per 7.91 seconds, and the cheapest calls
are between 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., which is at Rp 145 per 35.71
seconds.

In a hearing with legislators on July 24, Nasution explained
that based on the 1998 telecommunications ministerial decree,
telephone calls over a distance of more than 30 km are classified
as interlocal.

But Telkom wanted to provide special treatment to customers
particularly in Greater Jakarta, so the classification has not
been applied so far, he said.

Legislators urged the government to cancel the plan.

Burhanuddin Napitupulu of the Golkar faction said that Telkom
should not pass its business failure on to customers within
Greater Jakarta by raising local-call tariffs.

He pointed out that Telkom suffered both a loss during the
first quarter of 1998 and the consequences of poor performances
by its joint-operation telecommunications project (KSOs)
partners, five international telecom giants.

Burhanuddin urged Telkom to return rates to April tariffs;
while Nasution said the plan to charge interlocal calls in
Greater Jakarta was up to the government, meaning the director
general of telecommunications.

Despite the April increases, Nasution said that Telkom still
suffered a first quarter net loss, though he did not provide
figures. He admitted the crisis this past year has caused a
disruption in its more than two-year joint operation fixed-line
telecom projects.

Under the initially attractive KSO contracts, five private
telecommunications firms were to install two million fixed lines
in Central Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi, Kalimantan and areas in
eastern Indonesia by March 1999.

Recently, YLKI even urged consumers to boycott Telkom by not
paying their bills if it went ahead with its plan to raise
telephone rates for a third time, even though this would mean
Telkom could disconnect their lines.

A more realistic approach would be Zumrotin's reminder to
customers to do their part in using the telephone more
efficiently. "Consumers should first think of how much they would
be charged, particularly during busy hours. If they don't want to
pay more for calls, they should use the phone only during the
cheapest time," she said. (ste)