DUSHANBE, December 1, Asia-Plus — Open joint-stock company (OJSC) Tojik Telecom (Tajikistan’s national fixed-line telecommunications) has introduced the CPP (Calling Party Pays) model. Cost of outgoing calls from fixed-line network of Tojik Telecom changed with effect from December 1 and it is now 16.5 dirams per minute instead of the previous 2 dirams. Incoming calls from all operators, irrespective of forms of property, will be free of charge.
Calling Party Pays (CPP) is the arrangement in which the mobile subscriber does not pay for incoming calls. Instead, the calling party pays for those calls.
Rules of paying for incoming calls to cell phones also changed with effect from December 1 – incoming calls to all cellular communications operators in Tajikistan are now free of charge.
According to Tojik Telecom, the price of one minute of outgoing calls from it network to other fixed-line telecommunications and mobile phones is now 16.4 dirams (equivalent to 4.7 cents). The previous cost of outgoing calls from Tojik Telecom networks was 2 dirams per minute.
Mamour Qairakhonov, the head of the economic analysis department at Tojik Telecom, said that call rate within the Tojik Telecom network remains the same – 2 dirams per minute.
According to him, Tojik Telecom’s customers who want to have access to other telecommunications operators should get their contracts concluded with Tojik Telecom reissued.
We will recall that speaking to journalists on September 29, 2007, Ghafur Irkayev, the head of the Association of Cellular Operators of Tajikistan (ACOT), said that at first they supposed to introduce the CPP model on January 1, 2008 but then decided to bring introduction of the model forward. According to him, the CCP model provides for increase in prices of fixed-line telecommunications and they decided to introduce it earlier, on December 1 this year, in order that it would not be sudden and could not affect budget forming.
