Telkom to go ahead with plan on new tariffs

JAKARTA (JP): State-owned domestic telephone monopoly PT Telkom is to go ahead with its plan to restructure local call tariffs within Greater Jakarta, the government said yesterday.

If implemented, Telkom would apply a long-distance call rate of Rp 950 (7 U.S. cents) per minute for all local calls over a distance of more than 30 kilometers.

The Directorate General of Post and Telecommunications at the Ministry of Communications said in a statement that Telkom's rate restructuring plan was in line with the tourism, post and telecommunications ministerial decree No. KM.104/PR.301/MPP-94, which came into force on Jan. 1, 1995.

The decree stipulates that local call rates apply only for calls within a range of 30 km. Calls over more than 30 km are classified as long distance, thereby subject to long-distance call rates.

The decree simplified long-distance calls into three zones from the previous five. Zone one is for calls from 30 km to 200 km, calls between 200 km and 500 km fall into zone two and calls over 500 km fall into zone three.

The decree set local calls at Rp 110 per pulse, which ranges from 1.5 minutes to three minutes depending on the time (morning, afternoon or night) the call is made.

The rate for long-distance calls in zone one was Rp 950 per minute, Rp 1,320 in zone two and Rp 1,650 in zone three.

The rates were raised based on telecommunications minister decree No. 38/PR.301/MPPT-98, which came into affect on April 1, 1998. Local calls were increased to Rp 145 per pulse and long- distance calls to Rp 112 per pulse (seven seconds for zone one, five seconds for zone two and four seconds for zone three).

"Therefore, if PT Telkom has a telephone call between two places with the same code but at a distance of more than 30 kilometers, it means that it does not apply the new rate system but only the rates based on the tourism, post and telecommunications ministerial decree," the statement said.

"Currently, PT Telkom is preparing to implement ministerial decree No. 38/PR.301/MPPT-98 fully and for that it needs time to make the preparations," it added.

The directorate general noted that Telkom had already applied such a rating system in areas outside Greater Jakarta.

It argued the new system was fairer to callers than the previous system which treated all calls within the same area code as local calls and all calls between two different area codes as long-distance calls.

The old system, it said, treated calls between Bogor and Cibinong in West Java, which are 25 km apart, as long-distance calls because they have different area codes.

However, calls between Bekasi and Tigaraksa, also both in West Java and 57 km apart were treated as local calls as they shared the same area code, 021.

"This is not fair because telephone users in rural areas subsidize users in big cities," the directorate general argued.

The changes benefit callers more than 50 areas, such as Bogor, Cibinong, Cibubur, Cileungsi, Cinere, Cisalak, Ciputat, Gunung Putri and Tigaraksa, which previously had to pay long-distance rates. (rid)