'I don't mind rate hike, I use office telephones'

The government has allowed telephone operators PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom) and PT Indonesia Satellite Corporation (Indosat) to raise local telephone rates by up to 28 percent, but it has yet to set a date when the new rates would be introduced. The Jakarta Post talked to some residents about the issue.

Feri, 32, is a civil servant and working at the database unit at City Hall. He lives with his wife in Karawaci, Tangerang:

The rate hike doesn't affect my household budget because I don't use telephones much and I don't have access to the internet at home. I only use a computer when I'm at the office.

I spend most of the day in the office so I make or receive most of my calls from there. When I get home, I'm fed up with making phone calls. I only pay about Rp 100,000 (US$11.76) in phone bills a month.

But what has been troubling me is why the government has to pick the time around election campaigns to increase the phone rates? I think it was meant to avoid possible protests as the public's attention was focused on the political campaigns.

Or maybe it was engineered by adversaries of President Megawati Soekarnoputri who wanted her to lose popularity and affect the voting for her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

Srinita, 43, is a housewife. She lives with her husband and their two teenagers in Perdatam, South Jakarta:

From what I know, the telecommunications service is monopolized by Telkom, which puts us in difficult situation any time they want to hike up the phone rates.

I have two teenage girls and they seem to have grown handsets on their ears. They can talk over the phone with their friends for more than 15 minutes at a time. I've recently put a bar on the phone.

The government should delay the plan to increase the phone rates because all market prices have been increasing lately. It would be better if we had more than one telecommunications operator, so we could have more competitive rates, right?

--The Jakarta Post