Phone Fees to be Lowered
(for my non-Kuwait readers, Kuwait has a monopoly on all the communications in the country, and the phone rates are the highest I have experienced anywhere in the world. Most people who can subscribe to internet phone service providers like Skype, Vonage, etc. and use the internet connections to stay connected with family, friends, and to do personal financial transactions by phone. Kuwait claims they are losing millions of dinars in revenue, and continually tries to monitor and crack-down on illegal internet telephony.)
This is another tiny article from the Kuwait Times, September 26th.
Kuwait: Undersecretary for International Services at the Ministry of Communication Engineer Hameed Al-Qattan said that the ministry will offer outstanding call service fees over the Internet in order to stop the theft of international calls. Al-Qattan said that the announcement of this service will be in October and it will lead to a 50% reduction of international call fees from it’s present price.
I don’t have the figures. But I believe that most of the internet call services are charging between $16 (around 4KD) to $30 (around 8KD) per MONTH depending on the number of minutes you sign up for. Most of the calls to the US / Canada are free up to X number of minutes. Calls to foreign countries cost pennies per minute. They are charged to your credit card monthly, and the cost is a pittance. It’s laughable.
The call quality is not always so great, but hey, it’s a connection, right? And you are not paying an arm and a leg.
So Kuwait is going into competition with all the international internet call companies?
They will provide “outstanding” call service fees?
How cheap do those call service fees have to be in order to be competitive with the providers people are already using?
Will they also provide “outstanding” connections, better than the current internet connections we are dealing with?
Stay tuned!
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Really!! GOOD! time to do something!! those dimwits talk alot!
Isnt it amazing that Calls to US and western country’s are much cheaper than to South Asian Countries ? A minute of International call from India to Kuwait costs just about approx 10 INR [ie 60fills], where as call from Kuwait to India costs a whopping 350fills , according to International telecommuniction laws it should be the same [60fills]… but what MOC is doing is day light robbery … no wonder there are guys in my area provide illeagal calls for just 50 fills per minut.
GreY – Do you know the fable about the golden goose? I think greed is at the center of this. It’s not fair, it’s not humane, and that kind of behavior comes back to bite you in the but.