Phone rate increase effective Friday

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government's decision to raise telephone rates by an average of 15 percent will become effective as from Friday (today), according to a letter signed by Minister of Transportation Agum Gumelar and sent to three telecommunications firms.

According to the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Jakarta Post, Agum, who also oversees telecommunications, said that the phone rate increase was part of the government's three- year plan to crank up phone charges by 45.49 percent in a bid to help attract new investment in the fixed-line telecommunications sector.

In a report published in this paper on Wednesday, Agum said that the hike in phone rates would be effective as from Thursday.

Telecommunication firms could not yet provide details of the new phone rates as their top officials were, as of late Thursday, still in a meeting to finalize the details of their calculations.

The phone rate hike had been approved by the House of Representatives in November last year.

The government is planning to expand the country's telecommunications network. It has targeted the installation of at least two million telephone lines by 2004.

State-owned telecommunications company PT Telkom had installed a total of 7.1 million telephone lines across the country, which is equivalent to 3.24 telephone lines for every 100 people.