Phone rates to rise by 28% on Monday

JAKARTA (JP): The government will raise the rates of domestic long-distance and intracity telephone calls by as much as 28 percent to offset increasing operating costs, an official at the Ministry of Communications said.

Director General of Post and Telecommunications Sasmito Dirdjo said on Friday that state-owned PT Telkom, which runs the domestic telecommunications system, would also raise monthly telephone fees on Monday.

"We have painstakingly considered the increases. We know that a rate-hike is never popular, but this must be done," Sasmito told reporters after a meeting with Minister of Communications Giri Suseno Hadihardjono.

Domestic long-distance phone calls will increase by 28.57 percent to Rp 144 (1.6 U.S. cents) per pulse from Rp 112 per pulse, he said.

One pulse lasts from 1.5 to three minutes depending on the distance of the phone call and the time the call is made.

Sasmito said intracity call rates would rise by 24.4 percent from Rp 145 per pulse to Rp 180 per pulse.

Intracity call rates for public phones which use cards will go up to Rp 220 per pulse, while the rates for public phones using coins will be lowered by about 20 percent.

Pulses for public phones which use coins will be extended from the current 2.5 minutes to three minutes starting on Monday, Sasmito said.

The monthly fee for telephones in houses and social establishments will rise by 10 percent, while the fee for phones in businesses will rise by 17 percent.

The current installment fee for new phone lines, however, will remain unchanged.

Telkom proposed raising phone rates by 42 percent in November, but the House of Representatives rejected the proposal as untenable during the economic crisis. (das)