| Choosing a tariff for a residential telephone can be a non-trivial task According to the Federal Tariff Service (FTS), from February 1, 2007, you and I will be given the opportunity to choose a tariff plan for our own apartment telephone. Instead of a fixed subscription fee, independent of the number of local calls within the fixed telephone network, a line of three tariffs appears, and a new concept is also introduced: “fee for using a subscriber line.” The mass consumer is invited to understand all this and make an informed choice.
There is no hope that by February 1, 2007, the population will be informed about the changes and ready for them. Almost five months have passed since the legislative introduction of the “caller pays” principle, but according to the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM), 14.3% of Russians are still unaware of it. And this despite the fact that the press, radio and television covered the topic extensively. So, most likely, few people will take special care in choosing a payment tariff for a landline phone.
Will the price of the phone go up?
What happens if the subscriber relies on chance and does not choose any of the three tariffs? Deputy head of the FTS Vitaly Evdokimenko says that in this case the phone will be automatically transferred to the so-called “combined” tariff. It provides less than 14 minutes of free calls per day. Which will inevitably lead to a significant increase in bills for intracity calls.
Let's see how things stand in Moscow, given that the situation with the new rules for paying for a fixed-line telephone in the capital is no fundamentally different from the situation in the regions. Subscribers of the Moscow City Telephone Network (MGTS) have already received a “gift” of 1.5 rubles from telecom operators. fees for every minute of call to a federal mobile number. Yes, this is what the caller pays principle requires. But things could have turned out much worse: if not for the very active efforts of the Ministry of Information Communications (up to outright pressure on cellular companies that did not want to be content with deductions of 95 kopecks per minute of connection to a fixed-line network), the cost of calls from landlines to mobile phones would have been significantly above one and a half rubles. Attempts by mobile operators, who were forced to agree to 95 kopecks. from a minute, yet to take its toll due to the increase in prices for outgoing calls also did not go through. Minister of Information Technologies and Communications Leonid Reiman reacted to this publicly, saying that such a change in tariffs was “not entirely justified.” And now, it seems very likely that fixed-line operators will take the path of increasing the cost of their services.
How will we pay for a landline phone?
The mandatory introduction of three tariff plans for communication services is provided for in Article 54 of the Federal Law "On Communications" and the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of October 24, 2005 "On state regulation of tariffs for public telecommunications services and public postal services." Three future tariffs: with time-based (per-minute) payment for all calls, with a subscription fee for an unlimited volume of telephone connections, and a combined tariff, in which a certain number of minutes is included in the mandatory monthly subscription fee, and calls beyond this are paid additionally.
Moreover, in any case, we will have to pay a fixed cost for using the telephone line (conventionally, this can be considered a payment for the opportunity to answer incoming calls for free). Let us remind you once again: calls to cell phones, long-distance and international connections are not taken into account in these tariffs and are paid separately.
How much will communication cost?
At first glance, not so much. According to preliminary data from the Federal Customs Service, the subscription fee for an unlimited amount of time for local calls (what we use now) will be 270 rubles. per month. But this does not take into account the mandatory line rental fee (125 rubles). The total is 395 rubles. per month. Involuntarily, the assumption comes to mind that the new concept of “line rental” was invented solely to disguise the doubling of the price of urban communications.
In the option with time payment, we will pay the same 125 rubles. for “line rental” and 28 kopecks. for every minute of local conversation. Simple arithmetic leads to the conclusion: if you want to meet today’s 200 rubles, then you will have to talk no more than eight (!) minutes a day. If you are “lucky” and your house is connected to a very ancient station (there are few of them left in Moscow), then, due to the technical impossibility of per-minute billing, your subscription fee will simply be increased from 200 to 229 rubles. per month.
Socially vulnerable segments of the population - elderly pensioners, sick people, disabled people, etc. - will suffer the most from the upcoming price increase. All those for whom the apartment telephone remains almost the main thread connecting a person with the outside world.
Is the price increase justified?
Telephone companies argue that telephone subscription fees do not cover costs and even lag behind the rate of inflation in the country. Is this really true? The independent Internet resource www.cells.ru provides interesting figures on the growth of inflation and the increase in prices for unlimited fixed-line communications over the past seven years. It turns out to be an interesting picture. For example, with inflation in 2005 of 10.9%, subscription fees increased by 17.6%. The forecast for 2006 and the beginning of next year is not at all encouraging: inflation has no chance of keeping up with the cost of fixed-line telephone communications, which will rise in price by 97.5%! Even if we assume the imperfection of the calculation methodology used by www.cells.ru experts, there is reason to think about the reasons for the increase in tariffs.
New tariffs for servicing landline telephones are being introduced not only in Moscow, but throughout Russia. According to the analytical agency J'son & Partners, the increase in the income of local communication operators from the introduction of new tariff plans could amount to about two billion dollars a year.
There is no doubt that fixed-line operators incur serious expenses in the process of running their business. For example, according to the press service of MGTS, from November 14 to 16 alone, attackers cut out, stole and handed over a total of almost 100 meters of expensive telephone cable to scrap metal collection points (recently, messages of this kind have become the main topic of the company’s press releases). Perhaps the company would be more effective by limiting thieves' access to telephone wells, rather than passing those costs on to loyal subscribers. Sergey POTRESOV |
| |
