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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 84,397
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OP
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They have been talking about it for months, but today Belize Telecommunications Limited finally lowered the boom on Belizean consumers. Disguised as a tariff rebalancing, BTL today announced a new rate structure, which will drastically raise the cost of living
for both residential and business customers. What the monopoly telecom has done is to essentially double rates for line rental and local calls, while reducing international and cellular service by approximately twenty-five percent. The breakdown is as follows:
Line installation rises from ninety dollars to a hundred. Phone rental climbs from two to five dollars a month, while line maintenance for residential customers jumps from eight dollars a month to twenty, an increase of one hundred and fifty percent. Business consumers are not spared, as their monthly charge for each phone line catapults from twenty dollars to an astronomical fifty. And that's just for openers. Once you actually use your phone to place a local call, the tab will now double to ten cents a minute instead of five.
On the other side of the equation--the side BTL prefers to emphasise--some rates will drop. Long distance calls within the country will be reduced from twenty-five and fifty-five cents per minute for zones one and two, to twenty and forty cents respectively. International calls to the U.S. fall substantially from two seventy-five to one seventy-five per minute. But calls to the Caribbean, Central America, Canada and the rest of the world come down by less then ten percent.
Cellular is another area for lower rates, with a drop in activation and access fees, as well as per minute charges, which will fall from seventy cents to fifty-five during business hours and from forty to thirty during off peak time. Those rates, however, are for standard cellular; the more popular prepaid service goes down by just nine cents to a still punishing ninety cents per minute.
It is the new charges for internet service that users will find most disappointing. While the monthly access fee charge drops from forty dollars to twenty-four, the previously free first eight hours will now be paid for...and instead of the old four dollar per hour rate, web surfers will pay ten cents a minute--the equivalent of six dollars per hour. After twelve hours of use, the rate drops to five cents per minute, but that will provide savings only for the biggest internet users. Sample calculations done by News 5 indicate that typical twelve hours per month internet customers will see their bill rise from fifty-six to ninety-eight dollars monthly, while even thirty-six hours per month users will pay one hundred and sixty-eight dollars instead of one hundred and fifty-two.
At this point, a number of questions arise. The first is "why?" The answer is simple. By its own admission, when BTL's monopoly ends at the end of next year its most likely competition will come in the areas of cellular and international calls, services for which prices world-wide have been dropping like bombs over Afghanistan. So BTL's rate cuts here are just a pre-emptive strike to anticipate the competition. But in the local service, where new competition is doubtful, BTL feels free to jack up the rates as Belizeans will have no choice but to stick with the green giant. Thus while BTL's profits may fall on cellular and international calls, any losses will be more than balanced by increased revenue on the local side.
What, then, one may ask, is the problem? Don't the increases and decreases balance out? The problem is that with radically improved technology, Belizeans should expect their overall communications costs to drop, like those around the world. Under BTL's plan, they will not only not drop, but will in fact rise. But the worst part is that BTL's latest moves are not meant to salvage the position of a struggling utility earning profits of a lacklustre five, ten or fifteen percent on revenues. Instead, they are meant to preserve the status quo of what may be the most consistently profitable publicly held utility in the world; one which regularly earns profits of fifty cents on every dollar it collects and has rewarded its shareholders with annual dividends in excess of thirty percent. All of this at the expense of the Belizean consumer.
And in case any viewer is wondering where the Public Utilities Commission is in all this mess, we are told by P.U.C. chairman, Gilly Canton that the supposed watchdog has been neutered by the terms of BTL's licence granted in 1988. That licence merely requires that BTL inform the minister of its intentions and does not give the minister--in this case Ralph Fonseca--the right to deny the rate changes. According to Canton, while the relevant legislation has been amended for the water and electricity industries, the telecommunication laws remain untouched. "The pieces are not yet in place," said Canton.
Meanwhile, News 5's calls to BTL have been met with the reply that an explanatory press conference has been called for Friday morning and any inquiries must wait until that time. The new rates are scheduled to come into effect on December first and there is already talk of a grassroots boycott by consumers who are being asked not to pay their October phone bills, ordinarily due at the end of November.
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Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 1,080
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This is awful. Isn't BTL just shooting themselves in the foot for when their license runs out the end of next year? Seems to me the would be backpeddling, lowering rates, and making themselves look more attractive. What a disappointment for the people of Belize. A lot of businesses rely on internet for their tourist trade, not to mention the impact on the "average Jose".
Kathy
"You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."
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Anonymous
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Anonymous
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my question would be, when is the service going to get any better? we have internet at our house, and we couldn't get a decent enough connection to stay on any length of time, so they wouldn't make any money from me? we have 2 dedicated internet lines and computers at my house in the states. yes, it's excessive, but a girl has got to shop somehow!!!
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 84,397
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OP
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PUC challenges BTL rates
The Public Utilities Commission has come to the defense of Belizean consumers, challenging Belize Telecommunications Limited to justify their proposed new rates. The commission has challenged BTL to prove that its local call rates are in fact less than what it costs the company to provide this service, and that the company is subsidizing this cost from its revenue earned on international calls.
The Public Utilities Commission is a statutory body formed under the P.U.C. Act of 1999 and is chaired by Dr. Gilbert Canton. Its members are Mary Martinez, Rev. Ilona Smiling, Santiago Mendoza, Al Chanona and Harry Noble.
In calling on BTL to justify their rebalancing of local and international call rates, the commission is invoking section 15 of the Act, which gives it power to call for an investigation in the event of consumer complaints. The PUC has warned BTL that it will hold a full hearing if the company proceeds to implement the new rates on December 1, 2001 as it has given notice it intends to do.
The utilities commission has advised BTL that it should hold off on rate restructuring, which might be phased in at sometime in the future when there is effective competition in the Belizean market.
Although the company has announced it is revising rates to "provide $3 million in savings to customers," unless most of your calls are international calls, you're not likely to see a sizeable reduction in your bill.
The proposed rates would see customers paying higher bills, especially Belize City residents, who may have more than one line in their home or business, or use the Internet. Rates to the US have dropped significantly:
$2.75 per minute (standard*) to $1.75 $2.00 per minute (economy**) to $1.50 Rates to countries OUTSIDE the Western Hemisphere are also lower: $4.50/$5.75 to $4.00 (standard) $ 4.00/$5.00 to $3.50 (economy).
But calls to Central America and South America, Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean have been reduced at best by 25 cents per minute.
If you live in Belize City and use your phone mainly for calls within the City, your local bill is likely to skyrocket since calls within Belize City have doubled. You can only get the 5 cents a minute rate during economy hours.
If you live in the districts, your local calls have done just the opposite, dropping from $0.15 to $0.10. Calls to another district (zone 1 or areas within the same exchange) drop from $0.25 cents per minute to $0.20 cents. They remain the same for economy time at $0.15 a minute. Zone 2 calls (exchanges farther away) drop from $0.55 to $0.40 per minute.
Just having a phone is going to cost you more. New phone installation is going up from $90 to $100 and phone rental will increase from $2 per month to $5, for everyone except the "economy package"--those who use calling cards to dial out.
Everyone is going to pay more for "line access and maintenance," up $8 for residential to $10 for "economy" families and $20 for everyone else. Businesses will see an increase from $20 to $50 per month per line.
So even before you dial the phone, or even if you are away for an entire month and don't use it, all homeowners will now have to pay BTL a minimum of $25 (rental plus line access and maintenance) per month plus 8% sales tax. Businesses will owe a minimum of $55 per month, plus 8% sales tax. Remember that's for each line.
If you have Internet service, your access fee may seem lower, reduced from $40 to $24, but you will no longer get those "free" first 8 hours. As soon as you log on and begin to wait for connection, you will be charged $0.10 per minute.
This translates to $6.00 per hour or $48 for the 8 hours previously covered under your $40 fee. This of course is now in ADDITION to the $24 access fee. Translation: Internet users will now pay $72 for the time they used to get for $40. BTL consoles us by dropping the rates those who use more than for 12 hours to $0.05 a minute ($3.00 an hour.)
As for cellular phones, as usual the prepaid customers will realize very little savings, now paying a whopping $0.90 (down from an even more whopping $0.99) for standard time, and $0.70 for economy time, an option previously withheld. Standard cell customers enjoy reductions from $0.70 standard minutes to $0.55, and $0.40 to $0.30 for economy. Activation rates have been dropped by $9.00 for both types of cell phones and regular cells now pay $25 for monthly access instead of the previous $35. All new rates become effective December 1, 2001.
*standard time is 6am to 8pm
**economy time is after 8:01pm to 5:59 am.
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Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 7
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Marty,
Has P.U.C. worked out a means for others to put in some other phone system come the end of next year ?
For example off of the Ambergris Caye area could not some gain a connection into the Fiber Optic undersea cable ?
Then off of that deploy some 2G or 3G wireless connections throughtout the countryside ?
What will it take for approval for a outfit to put in some services come the end of next year ?
The one way to increase profits for all is to increase the size of the pie that is the reality.
Growth of Industry and other items is the key to increasing the critical mass size of business to the point to make something happen in Belize.
Growth needs a plan inwhichthe people of Belize and outside industry and people can generate economic activity like the "online Casino idea" but in the next level of the technology tree.
Any comments ?
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 955
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About time we have an official body to check up on these Crooks finally someone might be able to tame the Bully.
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