05 February 2004	Thursday	13 Zilhaj 1424

KARACHI, Feb 4: The Pakistan Telecommunication Company offered to subscribers no reduction in tariff for national and international calls this Eid.

Previously, the phone company used to announce a significant reduction in tariff over Eid holidays to offer an incentive to subscribers making calls to their relatives and friends in different cities of the country or living abroad.

When contacted, a spokesman for the PTCL argued that the tariff for national and international calls was already so low that there was no need to announce a further reduction.

"The PTCL charges Rs8.5 per minute for calls made to an area 160 kilometres away from the city. Calls made to countries in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation are charged at Rs25 per minute. The same rates are applicable to Saudi Arabia. For the rest of the world, the PTCL tariff is Rs30 per minute. This rates came into effect as early as Dec 1, 2003," he explained.

The PTCL spokesman pointed out the phone tariff was reduced by 50 per cent during public holidays.

A report compiled by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority recently says that despite a downward revision in tariff, the international outgoing traffic of the PTCL has failed to show a significant increase.

It says: "Based on the last 10 years data, minutes per subscriber have shown a dwindling trend and failed to keep the momentum with the network expansion. For the fiscal year 1999 the international outgoing traffic per subscriber was 40.65 minutes, compared to 31.34 minutes in 2002.

For the year 2001-2002 international outgoing traffic contributed 6.33 per cent towards the total revenue. Minutes per subscriber have been hovering around 30-31 minutes for the past five years without showing any significant growth."

However, the report says, the long-distance traffic has registered significant growth. It says: "The revenue growth rate of this segment surpassed the growth rate of the network expansion, mainly because of successive tariff rebalancing packages. The highest slab of the tariff was brought down from Rs21 per minute to Rs13.07 per minute over the period of 2000- 2002.

"Expansion in the network played a vital role in establishing a link between sizable numbers of bread-earners residing in cities with their immediate families living in remote areas. Thus, increase in network expansion coupled with sharp reduction in tariff had culminated in the revenue growth both in terms of rupees and volume. The share of the NWD (nation-wide dialling) revenue to total domestic revenue increased to 20.15 per cent in 2002 from 16.86 per cent in 2001."

PHONE BILLS: The PTCL will soon issue bills containing outstanding "other charges" to subscribers in the North Karachi zone and the Gulistan-i-Jauhar zone.

Official sources told Dawn that the previous month the phone utility had issued bills to subscribers containing the outstanding dues for value-added services. They added that such bills had been issued to even those subscribers who did not employ value-added services.

The official sources said that the executive vice-president of the PTCL had made it clear to the billing department that this time bills should be issued after verification.