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

'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