You're reading: Competition agency studying situation with increase in tariffs in some packages by Kyivstar

The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine is studying the situation with the increase of tariffs for some package by the Kyivstar mobile communications operator, First Deputy Head of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, Rafael Kuzmin, told reporters in Kyiv on Thursday.

“We’re monitoring the situation [with the tariffs]. It’s true that Kyivstar sent SMS messages to some subscribers informing them about the increase in the tariffs for some services. The messages were sent to those subscribers who have phones, but who don’t use them fully: they only accept calls, but they don’t make calls.

Kuzmin added that the share of such subscribers does not exceed 5 percent.

As reported, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine in late December 2012 reached an agreement with Kyivstar and MTS Ukraine mobile operators regarding the reduction of mobile communications tariffs. The committee has sent recommendations on the reduction of their tariffs to the level if there was competition on the market.

The committee said that the economic effect from the reduction of the tariffs could be Hr 1 billion. The committee did not explain how it calculated the figure.

The committee studied the situation with the tariffs for mobile communications services at the beginning of 2012 and in summer it recommended Kyivstar and MTS Ukraine to reduce the tariffs to the economically justifiable level.

The operators several times submitted reports on measures taken to reduce their tariffs. However, in late September 2012 the committee officially opened a case against the refusal to cut the tariffs. The committee several times said that the operators could be fined sums worth up to 10 percent their annual income.

Kyivstar promised that the operator on Feb.1-12, 2013 would reduce the cost of SMS and MMS services by 50 percent in some tariff plans.

In the tariffs where the cost of an SMS today is Hr 0.50 per message, the new cost will be UAH 0.25 per message, and in tariffs where the cost of one message is Hr 0.75, it will fall to UAH 0.38 per message. MMS messages, the price of which was Hr 1 before the reduction, will cost Hr 0.50, and in tariffs where the price of an MMS was Hr 1.45 the cost will amount to Hr 0.75 per message.

Kyivstar said that an optimization is being carried out to execute the recommendation of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine on bringing of the operator’s tariffs to economically justifiable levels.

Recently the media reported on changes to some of the tariff plans of Kyivstar.