The Consumers’ Foundation yesterday said that slightly lower mobile service rates that took effect on April 1 came with so many strings attached that users would receive hardly any real benefits.
The National Communications Commission (NCC) recently adjusted rates for fixed and mobile telecommunication services that officially took effect last Friday.
Rates for mobile phone users, including those with second-generation and third-generation services, dropped by a minimum of 4.04 percent.
ADJUSTED RATES
However, the foundation said the adjusted rates only apply to calls from mobile phones to home phones and to those between different service providers. The cost of calls made within the network of the same service provider and text messages remain unchanged.
Foundation chairperson Joann Su (蘇錦霞) said the discount is not only less than the 5.87 percent drop seen last year, but that many mobile service users would not receive any real benefits from the new rates.
Most mobile phone users are on a monthly service plan where they pay a fixed amount per month, for example, NT$500, and in return deduct their calling charges from the monthly amount until they have used up all of their allotted minutes, in which case additional charges occur.
MINIMUM CHARGES
With the minimum 4.04 percent rate drop, it would be expected that the minimum monthly charges would decrease by NT$20 from a NT$500 fee. However, telecom companies will still charge the NT$500 fee and only offer the lower mobile service rates when a user has exceeded the allotted number of minutes according to the user’s monthly mobile service plan but additional charges would apply, the foundation said.
“The public can hardly benefit from this type of rate adjustment,” Su said.
BENEFITS
Su urged the NCC to adopt measures that would offer significant benefits to mobile phone users, rather than adjusting mobile calling rates by miniscule amounts and allowing telecom companies to bypass the rate drop by not applying them to monthly service fees.
The foundation also called for cheaper rates to apply to calls made between phones on the same mobile service provider, since phone users are rarely able to tell the difference between providers just by looking at the first four digits of a mobile phone number.
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