Telkom accused of discrimination

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) criticized state telecommunication company PT Telkom on Wednesday for discriminating between its customers.

Tulus Abadi of YLKI said the company had implemented a discriminatory policy through its service level guarantee (SLG), which categorized customers into different groups.

"It is only a marketing trick of Telkom to take advantage of its consumers," Tulus said.

The service features assistance to overcome telephone disruption and disconnection. There are four types of SLG: standard, silver, gold and platinum.

Telkom spokesman, Thomik Armawan, told The Jakarta Post it was like a credit card, but he failed to explain the difference between the four types, expect for standard and gold.

He said that starting earlier this year, Telkom had been marketing gold class SLG for its consumers both in residential and business areas.

Telkom consumers originally obtain the standard class. Those in this class are those who pay a monthly telephone subscription fee of as much as Rp 26,100.

A gold class customer is charged Rp 13,500 more, Thomic said.

If the phone line of a customer in the gold class category is disrupted, Telkom will fix it within one day. If the line is disconnected -- due to late payment, Telkom will reconnect the phone within 12 hours.

A standard class subscriber must wait three days to get a disrupted line fixed and wait 36 hours for a disconnected phone to be reconnected.

Tulus criticized the policy, saying that Telkom should not discriminate between subscribers.

"Fixing a telephone line is Telkom's obligation to all its consumers. It's wrong for Telkom to make it a business. It's against consumer' rights," he asserted.

Tulus also criticized the way Telkom offered the service.

Telkom sends letters to its customers, informing them that the company has upgraded their subscriber category, from standard to gold. If the customers do not want the gold class service, they have to call Telkom's customer service division to express their objection.

"Telkom should not have done that. They should have been proactive in asking the customers whether they want the service or not," Tulus said.

The marketing trick is disadvantageous to customers who do not want the offer as they have to waste time to call Telkom and have to pay for the call because Telkom does not provide a toll-free number, Tulus said.

Thomik, however, defended the marketing policy. "It's only an offer, no force. Consumers can call the consumer service department if they do not want it," Thomik said.

He also denied that the policy was discriminatory.

"Of course, the better the service the higher the cost," he said.