No radical changes in Ukrtelecom's tariffs expected after company sale, says vice premier
Kyiv, March 12 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The privatization of OJSC Ukrtelecom will not result in radical changes in communications tariffs, according to Sergiy Tigipko, Vice Premier and Social Policy Minister.
He said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Saturday that this due to the high competition on the Ukrainian communications market.
As reported, the National Communications Regulatory Commission (NCRC) has proposed to considerably increase subscribers' fees for popular telecommunications services regulated by the state. The regulator, which, out of eight members, has three who earlier worked at Ukrtelecom, proposed to increase the tariffs in two stages. In the first stage it is proposed to increase the subscribers' fees in the cheapest and most popular package by 25%, with an increase of the number of minutes from 200 to 400. In the second stage the number of minutes would grow to 600, and the subscribers' fees for urban areas would grow by 8% and for rural areas by 25%.
The tariffs charged to pay for the maintenance of analogue automatic telephone stations of Ukrtelecom would change in various ways. In towns they will grow only 10%, to UAH 29.74 per month, while in rural areas, which mostly have analogue stations, they will grow by 40%, to UAH 16.22 per month. The commission proposed to cut the fee for its telephone installation service to UAH 120, while today it varies from UAH 144 to UAH 216 in cities with populations of over one million people.