Recently, a citizen of Yerevan lost his telephone connection; not because he hadn’t paid the bill, but because he had paid the bill on behalf of another person. Six years ago, that same citizen bought his neighbor’s apartment, but the telephone line was still registered under the name of his neighbor.
During several years, the citizen paid the bills and didn’t have any problems with connection. However, “Armentel” has decided that the mentioned line should be re-registered under the name of its new owner as soon as possible, otherwise it will be turned off. Maybe the citizen asked to give him documents containing information and details about calls, for which he had to present documents, and due to that reason “Armentel” asked him to re-register the line.
Citizens are asked to pay 3.000 dram for re-registering telephone lines with their names. Even though the price for this service has been reduced recently, the price does not matter. The problem is the fact that they ask money for changing just one paper (by the way, they ask money for only these kinds of things). Many telephone lines are not registered under the name of their owners and if “Armentel” has decided that telephone lines have to be renamed by their real owners, it means that they will have extra incomes.
As for the monopolistic business of the Armenian stable telephone communications, next year it is going to increase the prices for stable communication, Internet communication, as well as the prices for local and long-distance calls. “Armentel” is going to increase the price for stable communication subscribers’ fee from 1.100 dram up to 3.000 dram, including VAT. “Armentel” has applied to the RA commission on public services and wants to decrease the limit of minutes for free calls from 360 minutes to 280 minutes. “Armentel” is also going to increase the minute payment by one dram and make it 6 dram per minute. If subscribers talk more than 1.000 minutes, which is the limit, they will have to pay 9 dram per minute.
“Armentel” is going to multiply the fee it asks for providing a new telephone line, thus in case it asks 12.000 dram from citizens, it is going to increase that fee up to 24.000, and for judicial persons – up to 28.000 dram.
I understand why the monopolist has decided to increase the prices. They are working intensively to improve telephone lines and the system in the regions of Armenia and they have to spend a lot of money. By increasing the prices for telephone conversations, they may compensate those expenses. For instance, in Gyumri many families do not have a stable telephone communication. The time has come to do something and the company plans to take care of those expenses with the money it gets from citizens. It is quite possible that “Armentel” may not provide new telephone lines during the coming several months and may provide new lines only after adopting new fees for the mentioned service.
Maybe “Armentel” has other reasons to do so. Maybe the Greek OTE company wants to increase the price for “Armentel” before selling it because fixing higher prices for its services makes more people register at “ArmenTel”. Maybe the potential buyer of “Armentel” has asked the company to take certain steps and make changes before selling it. Otherwise, if the new owner made those changes himself, it would harm his reputation as the new owner of “ArmenTel”.