Telkom owns up to 21 fold hike in peak hour call rates

JAKARTA (JP): An executive of state telecommunications operator PT Telkom has admitted that the telephone tariff here has been hiked 21 fold for local long-distance calls made during peak hours as per Feb. 1.

Doddy Amerudien, vice president for communications of the Bandung-based Telkom, told The Jakarta Post on Friday that the hike, implemented under a system which bases tariffs on distance and hour, has been postponed since 1995.

The system stipulated in ministerial decree No. 104/1994 was supposed to be effective on Jan. 1, 1995 all over Indonesia, Doddy said from the West Java capital of Bandung.

"However, it's already been implemented in areas across the country but excluding Bandung and Jakarta," he said, giving no further explanation.

That is why Telkom then finally decided, with the approval of the government and members of the House of Representatives, to raise the tariff using the new system.

"We've promised our investors in New York and London as well as in Indonesia that our rates would be appraised every year ... We just held back too long," Doddy added.

Telkom is already listed on stock exchanges here and overseas.

He said Telkom has no plan to cancel the hike following growing public protests, unless the government asks the company to do so.

"It's really up to the government. But I do think that it would be unlikely for the government to halt the hike.

I know many Jakartans are suffering ... but we all are in the same situation together," Doddy said, suggesting customers be more thrifty in making calls.

He admitted that Telkom had also been informed of the plan of certain parties to hold a national boycott of Telkom's monopoly service.

"That's a business risk. We're just implementing the government's new tariff which has been agreed by the House.

Customers failing to pay their monthly bill will have their lines isolated. Two months in arrears and the lines will be cut off," Doddy said.

The new tariff was abruptly announced by Telkom on Jan. 30 under a decree issued by the communications minister a day earlier.

It said that beginning Feb. 1 Telkom would raise its rates for domestic long-distance calls by 28.57 percent to Rp 144 per pulse, local calls by 24.14 percent to Rp 180 per pulse and telephone magnetic card service calls by 46.67 percent to Rp 220 per pulse.

The rates for coin-operated public telephones remain Rp 100 per pulse, but one pulse has been extended from 2.5 minutes to three minutes.

One pulse lasts from seven seconds up to three minutes depending on the distance of the call and the time the call is made.

But what has made many Jakartans angry is that Telkom is to charge them on the basis of distance and hours of calls.

For example, a customer in Kelapa Gading in North Jakarta calling his business partner in Karawaci, Tangerang, used to pay Rp 145 per two-minute midday call.

Many thought that under the new tariff the customer will be charged Rp 180, a 24 percent hike as Telkom had announced.

According to the new system, the Kelapa Gading customer would now have to pay Rp 3,085 for the two-minute talk, which is a 21.27 fold increase. (see table on page 3)

From Jakarta, Joko Dewoto, head of systems and marketing policy affairs of Telkom's Jakarta office, said that his office has had no time to disseminate the "new system" to the local customers.

"Jakarta's Telkom executives only knew of the implementation of the new tariff on Jan. 29," he told the Post.

"We then immediately got busy as we had to hastily change the tariff rates on the central system."

A customer, Alam of East Jakarta, questioned Telkom's motives for being unwilling to publicly reveal the new tariff system.

"Small people like me are totally blind to that system and calculation," he said.

"How can Telkom shock us like this?"

"Are they trying to tell us that just because the government has no money, Telkom then has the right to bleed us dry?" Alam asked.

City councilor Saud Rachman urged the government to immediately review the hike.

"The government cannot damage the economy of Jakartans... they know that phones are a daily necessity. The government must be wise enough to review these rates." (ylt)