Change of Moldtelecom tariffs on fixed location communications services is justified
The National Telecommunications and Informatics Regulatory Agency (NARSI) has said the change of tariffs on fixed location telephone communications services, provided by the Moldtelecom national communications operator, "is a justified and necessary measure".
According to the statement, Director of the NARSI, Sergiu Sitnic said the new service tariff program, which will be implemented on March 1, 2011, will eliminate the crisscross backing of the provider services, will stimulate the development of the fixed location telephone communications (FLTC) market, competition and attraction of new investment, which will provide benefits to the service consumers.
He said one of the main program goals is to eliminate the backing of the FLTC services at the expense of other Moldtelecom services, which is forbidden by the actual legislation.
"The crisscross subsidizing of services, maintenance of low prices on retail services and high prices on wholesale services of the provider led to a stagnation of the FLTC market and unsatisfactory development of the broadband service market", Sitnic said.
According to the Director, tariffs on FLTC services, provided by Moldtelecom, have not been changed since 2004.
In 2002, the Agency adopted a program on adjusting main enterprise service tariffs for the purpose to prepare the telecommunications market to a full liberalization. Only 2 of 4 provided phases were implemented - the 1st since February 1, 2003, and the 2nd since February 1, 2004.
The partial tariff adjustment with the real service cost has facilitated the entrance of alternative operators to the market and stimulated the competition development.
During 2004-2007, the number of the operators went up to 16 from 5; their market share went up to 3.9% from 0.42%, and it stopped afterwards. Since 2008, it has started going down and reaches 1.1% now.
According to the Moldtelecom statistics, revenues from local telephone communications services cover only 55% of the operator expenses for providing these services; the difference of 45% is subsidized at the expense of international call services and of reciprocal connections services, provided with other operators.
The subscribers can choose new subscription tariffs. Owners of actual subscriptions - Econom and Standard - will be automatically transferred to the Standard new subscription tariff, only if they do not fill application on using other subscription tariffs as Optim 300, Optim 500 or Optim Nelimitat.
Infotag
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