Higher phone bills from August 1 - RATEL allows price increase

The Republic Agency for Telecommunications (RATEL) announced that it had given a greent light to Telekom Srbija to increase the prices of subscription and local calls in fixed telephony as of August 1.

According to Ratel's website (www.ratel.rs), Telekom is allowed to increase the monthly telephone subscription fee for citizens and companies from 388 to 430 dinars, exclusive of the Value Added Tax (VAT), while the prices of local telephone calls will be about 100 percent higher due to shorter duration of an impulse.

One impulse in fixed telephony will still cost RSD 0.4043, exclusive of VAT, but the duration of an impulse in local talks will be shortened from 60 to 26 seconds in "peak traffic", that is, from 7 AM to 9 PM on working days and Saturday. .

At the time of "weak traffic", between 9 PM and 7 AM on working days and Saturday, as well as on holidays, one impulse in local talks will last for 52 seconds instead of 120 seconds.

Long-distance calls will be cheaper because an impulse in "peak traffic" will last for 17 instead of 12 seconds, that is, 34 instead of 24 seconds at the time of "weak traffic".

The impulse intervals for other calls in fixed telephony will remain the same, RATEL announced.

The price per minute of a phone call in "peak traffic", between 7 AM and 9 PM on working days and Saturday, will, according to Ratel's decision, cost RSD 0.92 for local calls and RSD 1.41 for long-distance calls.

At the time of "weak traffic", one minute of local calls and long-distance calls will cost RSD 0.46 and RSD 0.705, respectively.

Telekom Srbije will as of August 1 have to equalize all other prices of phone calls for business subscribers with the prices for population.

The subscription fee for the population also includes 300 free impulses, twice as much as before.

RATEL estimated that in spite of the increase in price of local calls, these prices in Serbia will still be among the lowest in the region.

With the doubling of the number of free impulses included in the subscription fee, citizens will get RSD 121.29 worth of free local calls, which is about 28 percent of the price of monthly subscription. So far, the monthly subscription fee has been including RSD 60.65 worth of free local calls or about 16 percent of the subscription fee.

Telekom: We did not ask for price increase

The company Telekom Srbija announced that it had not asked for the price increase and that people at the Republic Agency for Telecommunications explained to them that the price increase was inevitable in order to create the conditions for the work of new fixed telephony operators.

People at Telekom said that RATEL explained them that the market liberalization inevitably led to the establishment of economic prices.

- Having in mind the legal authorizations of the Agency, we will respect that decision, and we will inform the users on the details of new tariffs once we get familiar with them, but not less than one month before the application of new prices - reads Telekom's statement.