Dennise Williams, Staff Reporter
BOXING DAY 2003 will see an increase in MiPhone call rates. Landline users calling Oceanic Digital Jamaica (MiPhone) cell phones will be paying more for calls as the company will implement per minute billing. With the current per-second billing, each second is charged at $0.12.
The published advisory said, effective Friday, December 26, calls from Cable & Wireless fixed lines to Oceanic Digital Jamaica phones will be billed at the rate of $6.95 per minute, or part thereof, across all time bands, every day. These calls are presently billed by the second, but as of December 26, "they will be billed by the minute, or part thereof," the advisory said.
As to the rationale behind the billing change, Oceanic was tight-lipped. Numerous calls to the company were not returned.
However, at the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), a spokesperson stated that the reason was obvious. "It is a matter of money. Right now Oceanic is the cheapest cell phone to call from your house. Remember that last year, the rates were $7.00 per minute to call Cable & Wireless and $12.00 per minute to Digicel. Then Oceanic went to $9.00 per minute and then went down to $6.95 per second, but both Digicel, at $7.00, and Cable & Wireless were per minute. But perhaps they now realise that they will get more money per minute."
The OUR informed Wednesday Business that Oceanic did not need to apply to their office for the rate change. Said the OUR representative, "We fix a maximum termination rate for cellular to land line. We also fix the amount that Cable & Wireless can keep. The mobile carrier can get their rates within the band, with the maximum rate being $12.00 at peak hours."
Oceanic states that the company has approximately 70,000 subscribers. Their cellular licence was purchased from the Government in 1999 for US$145 million. Since acquiring their cellular licence, Oceanic has spent several hundred million US dollars in improving their network.
Earlier this month, the company has announced that they will spend US$2 million to offer their customers high speed Internet access.
