Azerbaijan rejects time-based telephone call charges

Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec 16 / Trend G.Veliev/ The Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies of Azerbaijan has thrown out a package of proposals involving the introduction of a time-based payment system for telephone calls, Ministry spokesman Mushfig Amirov told Trend on Wednesday. "Taking into account the reaction of the population to the Ministry of Communications proposal, we deemed it appropriate to remove this issue from the agenda. In this regard, we have formally requested the Tariff Board withdraws the proposals," Mr Amirov said. He said that perhaps the discussion will be resumed in the future. "However, today the use of time-based charging is considered inappropriate." Currently, the entire telephone system of Azerbaijan has been transformed into electronic form. Accordingly, the ministry has proposed the use of a time-based payment system for telephone calls in accordance with international practice. Packets of a time wage offered to the industrial association of the Tariff Board, provides two options, Director General of the production association Baku Telephone Communications of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies of Azerbaijan Beytulla Guseinov said to Trend The first package involves the preservation of the existing current monthly two manat fee which is proposed to include a limit of 450 minutes. It is for incoming calls, but with the outgoing calls it would be 900 minutes. The cost of extra minutes is offered at 0.01 manat. The second package worth five manat provides unlimited use of the telephone, as well as providing subscribers with additional benefits such as automatic connection to broadband internet services and free use of multimedia services. Official exchange rate on Dec 16 is 0.763 AZN/USD Do you have any feedback? Contact our journalist at agency@trend.az