BRTI Asked Telkomsel to Cut Tariffs in East Indonesia

Ilustrasi (dok)

JAKARTA (IndoTelko) - Indonesian Telecommunications Regulatory Body (BRTI) asked Telkomsel to cut internet tariffs disparity between the western and eastern part of Indonesia to provide a sense of equality for consumers.

"One of the points of the meeting with Telkomsel is that we asked Telkomsel to lower internet rates in eastern Indonesia, the gap must not be to wide with the western part of Indonesia," said Committee member of the Indonesian Telecommunications Regulatory Body (BRTI) I Ketut Prihadi Krishna in conversation with IndoTelko, last week.

Krishna said that currently Indonesia does not have a rule to regulate the data rate, therefore the body persuasively ask Telkomsel to reduce the tariff.

"There are no regulation yet, we are about to set it in 2016. We asked Telkomsel to consider the costumer's interest in reducing the eastern Indonesia's tariffs," Krishna said.

From the customer point of view, the government is requested to regulate more affordable rates. The operators are expected to reinvest at reasonable rates.

"We're thinking that the government will enter the Non Universal Service Obligation (USO) area which only Telkomsel exists there, we might subsidize it with the USO, but the USO design must first be changed," he said.

Furthermore, Krishna said that there will be a further meeting with Telkomsel to discuss on the details of the tariffs.

"Because customers also complained about the number of operators in the Capital city of eastern Indonesia, but Telkomsel rates remain the highest. We want to ask about it too," Krishna said.

Earlier, Minister of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) Rudiantara have contacted Telkomsel Board of Directors on Tuesday (28/7) related to the operator's internet rates implementation that are considered overpriced in Eastern Indonesia by some consumers.

Telkomsel tariff disparity case then triggered an online petition called the "Internet For People: Save @Telkomsel @KemenBUMN @kemkominfo"

The petition stated that the 12 zones of Telkomsel data tariffs has triggered disparity reaching up to 100% in the zones, currently thousands of supporters have signed the petition.

For example, tariff for a 2GB data packet in zone 1 is only Rp 65 thousand while in zone 12 the price is Rp 120 thousand. Zone 12 is the eastern part of Indonesia within Telkomsel's operational area. (es)