By Anna Shilongo
WINDHOEK
Telecom Namibia will from October 1 reduce some of its domestic and international telephone tariffs to make them more competitive.
Speaking yesterday at a press conference in Windhoek, Telecom’s Managing Director, Frans Ndoroma, said the reductions are consistent with the promise Telecom made years back to implement concerted tariff rebalancing in its drive to slash tariffs.
Ndoroma said the adjustments are also fundamental to one of Telecom’s central aims of providing affordable services and thereby stimulating economic growth and development.
Telecom would not increase its tariffs for the 2007/2008 financial year, he said.
“The fact that some rates will remain the same while many will be significantly reduced is putting us on a spot as Namibia’s service provider with a conscience,” said Ndoroma.
He said the international call charges would be reduced by an average of 14 percent with effect from October 1; the reduction will be applicable for calls to both fixed and mobile international destinations. This will include charges of calls to countries such as the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, the US, Spain, Australia, France, Kenya, Angola, Germany, Portugal and the rest of the world.
Charges for calls to SA, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe would remain unchanged.
Telecom will also implement full per second billing for all Switch net voice calls, while telephone line rental charges will be increased by 10 percent.
International IP Bandwidth tariffs were reduced by 10 percent while national tariffs will be reduced by 13 percent.
The Inmarsat Call charge is also going to be reduced by 10 percent.
At a press conference earlier this year, Telecom unveiled its strategic blueprints towards 2010 and reiterated the company’s commitment to deliver enhanced services to customers by investing about N$1 billion over a period of four years until 2010.
“We did not do that as a ploy on the part of Telecom Namibia to justify future rate increases for our telecommunication products and services in order to recover new investments and operating costs,” said Ndoroma.
“On the contrary, strategy 2010 is a new game plan to support the company’s evolution toward providing integrated communication services and deliver the benefits of IP-enabled applications to our customers,” he said.
He added that the company’s new focus will be on generation of new products and services.
During the current financial year Telecom Namibia invested over N$ 350 million in capital projects.
“Telecom will further invest in its network infrastructure to support business growth, national economic advancement and well-being of communities we serve. This investment will ensure the network’s reliability and will help the company deliver enhanced services to all our customers,” explained Ndoroma.
A number of new advanced services were also rolled out during the course of the year.