Lebanon will see a downfall in the mobile call rates by April’09. The government has official announced a reduction in call rates for both prepaid and post paid cards in order to lower the pressure on the the Lebanese.
The reduced call rates, according to the telecom minister Jebran Bassil, will save the Lebanese $225 million annually. The minister din’t predict a downfall in the revenues of the telcos as the country predicts that the country’s subscriber base is likely to rise to 2million.
According to the new price scheme, the monthly subscription for postpaid subscribers will slide to $15 from the current $25, experiencing a 40% drop.
The per minute calling rate for the postpaid cards will also fall to $0.11 from the current $0.13, a drop of 16%. The downfall will lure the customers to shift from the prepaid to postpaid schemes.
On the other hand, the cost for a prepaid card for a duration of 1 month will fall from the current $45 to $25, while the cost of a one-minute call will drop to $0.36 from the current $0.50.
According to Bassil, Egypt’s Orascom Telecom and Zain will issue three months validity prepaid cards in April and are expected to raise their subscriber base by 400,000 each in April.
“Every body will be winning. The government will sustain its revenues and the citizen will see a drop in his cellular bills,” Bassil said. He further said that the government will spend $100 million to upgrade and expand the size of the cellular networks.
“But I am sure that we will recover this money once we have more active subscribers,” the minister said.
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