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SLT handing up on Court ruling?
By Santhush Fernando
A consumer rights body is hoping to take the Sri Lanka Telecom to courts for not honouring an earlier Court ruling on SLT’s tariff hike. The Consumer’s Association of Sri Lanka is accusing the telecom giant of contempt of court as it had not adhered to the July 25 Appeal Court ruling given in a landmark case, The Sunday Times learns.

The Appeal Court nullified the SLT’s 2003 tariff hike -- which increased the monthly rentals to Rs. 500 -- and while ordering SLT to revert to its pre-2003 tariff rates, the Court ruled that the overcharged amounts be refunded to customers.

This amount is reported to be in the region of some One billion rupees.
Meanwhile the SLT said it was taking serious consideration of the judgment, which was delivered on July 25 this year on a case filed by the Consumer Association of Lanka where the Appeal Court quashed the approval granted by the Telecommunications Minister and the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka for the tariff revision implemented in September 2003.
SLT said it had entrusted the matter to its lawyers with instructions to seek special leave to appeal to the Supreme Court against the judgment delivered by the Appeal Court.

The 2003 tariff hike was the fifth and final increase allowed to SLT under the Share Holder’s Agreement signed between Japan’s telecom giant - the Nippon Telephone Corporation and the Government of Sri Lanka when a 39% stake was divested to the former.

The Consumer’s Association of Sri Lanka filed the writ application appealing the Court to reverse the tariff increase which was approved by the Telecom Regulatory Commission from September 1, 2003.

The Court held that as the Share Holder’s Agreement stipulated a period of five years ending on January 1, 2002, the agreement will lapse and no further tariff increase can be declared. As a result the original license issued to SLT will come into force.

However the Court dismissed the respondents’ plea that SLT has paid taxes to the Government for the extra amount charged from almost 870,000 customers from September 2003 to date, stating that repayment would have serious consequences, by pointing out that the petition was filed in October 2003.

TRC to implement CPP disregarding public protests
By Santhush Fernando
Despite much opposition from the public the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (TRC) is likely to go ahead with the implementation of the Caller Party Pays (CPP) system.

The Commission hopes to gazette the order of the Committee sometime in September. The Committee to review the tariff increase was chaired by the Director General Aruna Amerasinghe.

After the order is gazetted the Commission is only required to gazette a separate notification if it decides to implement the CPP system. A high ranking TRC official commenting on the matter said it was not at all appropriate to implement the CPP at this time.

Although employees of the telecom sector and the general public vehemently opposed the costing method and the CPP principle at a hearing held in August, the TRC is planning to implement the CPP, The Sunday Times learns.

A charge brought out by the public at the hearing was that the TRC had portrayed a picture whereby with the introduction of CPP, the cellular mobile subscribers will not have to pay for incoming calls charges, but a staggering additional amount would have be borne by the calling party.

The public emphasised the un-affordability of the existing call charges and pointed out that our charges were the highest in the region. They said any new additional charges would invariably heap more burdens on the customer.

The call charges in Sri Lanka were three to five times higher than in India, Pakistan and Nepal. The four tariff hikes introduced by Sri Lanka Telecom had caused a cumulative increase of 280 percent, while the charges in other countries were taking a nose-dive.

Although most other countries had adopted a duration based charging system SLT was continuing with its pulse-based method which charged the user by the minute.

The public alleged that a TRC directive issued in 1999 ordering a change-over to the duration based charging system was not implemented. The Commission was known to have employed a London-based firm – Frontier Economics – to conduct a cost study in consultation only with telephone operators and not with the public.

Some sections of the public said that originally it was proposed by telephone operators when there was no incoming-free connection. They said that with incoming free connection now available, CCP was no longer necessary.

Two mobile operating giants Dialog and Celltel had reportedly supported the CPP while fixed line operators Suntel and Lanka bell and the payphone operator Tritel had opposed its implementation.

The CPP was to be implemented back in 1999 in the guise of “free incoming calls” but was delayed after a writ order was obtained charging that no proper consultation with the general public had taken place.

However this will not come into force as there was no proper numbering plan, no detailed billing facility and the tariff rebalancing was pending at the time.
Jayantha Wickremesinghe of Intercity Paging Services told The Sunday Times the entire paging sector was destroyed after the TRC gave out it would introduce the incoming-free system.

The public was exploited by telephone operators due to weaknesses of the Commission and it had failed to educate the public on the CPP system, Mr. Wickremesinghe charged.

C. W. Abeyrathna the Managing Director of Fentons -- another paging company on the brink of liquidation -- told The Sunday Times that all paging companies went out of business due to the false propaganda of the TRC.
Mr. Abeyrathne charged that originally when CPP was proposed TRC failed to implement it due to the inefficiency of the Commission.

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