 |
|
As
predicted when the government announced they would cancel the contract with
Belize Telecommunications Limited (BTL) at the end of this year, the "Value of
Voice" will now be more valuable than ever-to BTL. As of December 1st, the most alarming increase announced
will be local calls within San Pedro which, alone, will increase from 15 cents
per call to 10 cents per minute!
In a release issued last week, the telecommunications
monopoly stated, to prepare for competition, they must improve their services to
"aggressively defend" their market position. Essentially what this means is,
since BTL has already established the land lines for local and national service,
the competition will target the markets of international and cellular service.
It is the opinion of many that BTL intends to continue dominating the domestic
market by holding the country hostage with their existing land lines. Thus, BTL
needs to compete in international and cellular markets only and will lower rates
for these services. By reducing international rates for future competition, they
claim they can no longer subsidize their high cost of providing phone service to
the domestic market (local and national calls) because the profits from the
"once lucrative" international market are no longer there. Although they
boast some of the largest profits of any company in the country ($40+million per
year), to generate the revenue needed to cover "their investments," BTL is
raising domestic phone and Internet rates. Due to the "availability of new
technologies that threaten to bypass the traditional international market,"
international calls can now be made "for a song" around the world (except where
they are blocked from use, such as in Belize due to BTL's exclusive license,
i.e., IP Star). Subsequently, as of December
1 st, businesses and the
general population must suffer rate hikes 2 ‡ times what they now pay just to
have a phone line and a rental phone. Line access and maintenance fees will be
$50 for businesses compared to the current $20; and $20 for residences compared
to the current $8 charge. Internet users are in for a surprise as well. The
previous $40 charge for eight FREE hours of usage will be no longer. The new
rate will be $24 PLUS ten cents per minute for the first twelve hours and five
cents per minute after that. Essentially, Internet will cost $72 for the first
eight hours instead of the current $40. Simply put, besides the $24 access fee,
rates will increase to $6 per hour up to 12 hours and decrease after twelve
hours to $3 per hour as opposed to the previous $4. Many rates are based on a standard versus economy
rate. Standard hours are from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. and economy hours are from 8:01
p.m. to 5:59 a.m. The ten cent per minute call within San Pedro will drop to
five cents during economy hours. Lower rates will apply for national long
distance: Zone 1 standard calls drop from $.25 to $.20 per minute; Zone 2
standard from $.55 to $.40 while economy rates in both zones will remain the
same, $.15 per minute. Those who use international long
distance will benefit the most as calls to the US drop from $2.75 to $1.75 per
standard minute; and from $2 to $1.50 economy. Other international rates will
decrease as well. Cellular services will also be reduced as activation rates
drop from $49 to $40 and monthly access from $35 to $25. Cellular phone call
charges will decrease as follows: Standard Cellular - standard minutes will
decrease from $.70 to $.55 and economy from $.40 to $.30. Prepaid cellular
standard minutes will decrease from $.99 to $.90 or $.70 during economy time.
Other benefactors will be customers with "low telephone usage and those in the
very low income group." An economy package will give them "the freedom to
receive calls with outgoing calls limited to emergency and prepaid services
only." These people will enjoy the current $2 phone rental fee and only $10
access and maintenance fees which include the $2 Prepaid
calls. According to BTL this rate revision will save
customers $3 million, although the formula to arrive at this figure was not
revealed. To soften the blow the company promises new digital telephone sets,
making possible added services such as caller ID, call waiting, speed dialing
and message waiting indictor. A new high-speed Internet service and other value
added or ancillary services were mentioned as well, but charges for all of these
were not disclosed. In response to this, the Public
Utilities Commission (PUC) issued a letter to BTL which advised that based on
complaints received they intend to hold a full hearing if the proposed rates are
implemented. This may seem contrary to a September report in this newspaper,
that the PUC was not an active body when the existing BTL contract was signed
into effect in 1987. It was stated then the PUC could not be involved in the
telecommunications process until it was "deregulated" when their contract
expired in December 2002. But, in their release they stated, "The PUC reserves
this right under Section 15 of the Public Utilities Commission Act of 1999 (PUCA
1999) following any complaint from the public about rates charged by public
utility providers." The PUC continued, "With the intention
of being responsive and in order to make a full assessment of the financial and
social implications for consumers, the PUC has called on BTL to substantiate
claims that domestic tariffs are artificially set below cost and are subsidized
from international revenues - hence their proposal to rebalance tariffs. The PUC
maintains that consumer interests must be protected and that, in the present
situation where there is no clear and concrete information indicating how
consumers may benefit, tariff re-balancing should remain as a long term
objective, phased in along with the realization of effective competition in the
Belizean Market. After the conclusion of the hearing, the PUC shall make an
order that imposes such conditions as it considers proper." The Public Utilities Commission invites the public to
forward their concerns about the new rates by E-mail to puc@btl.net or by fax at
02-71149.
|
| |
|
