Agreed
The government of Armenia and OTE, the owners of Armentel, have settled their long-running dispute.
As a result, the Armenian consumer will benefit from an enhanced competitive offering of telecommunication services rendered.
Let’s see what this actually means for the Armenian consumer. A second GSM license, breaking the monopoly that Armentel had. Prices and service?
Those who use cell phones will benefit from that.
However, those who use IP-telephony and internet lose big time. For example, now I pay $20/month for nights+weekends unlimited dial-up access + $10 for unlimited calling but then I will have to pay $20 for the internet account + $70 for the phone.
It sucks
Comment by Karen Vrtanesyan — 11/29/2004 @ 6:39 pm
The tender for a second mobile phone service was held in very dubious ways. In fact, it wasn’t a tender. Someone, who we assume is close to some individual or faction, in the Government awarded it to K-Telecom in just a few hours and didn’t advertise or allow any other companies to bid. This sounds to me as much a mistake as the initial ArmenTel privatization in the first place.
But, let’s see. If the price for an Easycard drops from $130+ on the black market to however much it should cost(is it $30? I’m not sure as I don’t use a mobile here because the service is bad and anyway, I don’t really have much of a use for one) then something good happened, I guess.
However, as Karen points out, at the expense of IP telephony and a chance to weaken the grip that ArmenTel has on ISPs. Incidentally, I’m interested. I know that there are something like 150,000 cellular phone users in Armenia and 400,000 in Georgia and 850,000+ in Azerbaijan because in the last two countries there is real competition in the marketplace.
However, I know nothing about ISPs and prices for connection at home in Az and Ge. Does anyone? In particular, it’s just so crazy the price of DSL here but I have to assume the prices are similar in Ge and Az. Does anyone know?
BTW: Another question but for you Karen. I think we may be paying the same prices for the same services. ie. I pay $20 / month for nights and weekend unlimited dialup plus 4800 dram / month for unlimited local calls on my landline phone.
Therefore, I’m kind of concerned when you start talking about having to now pay $70. What is this?
Cheers,
Comment by Onnik Krikorian — 11/30/2004 @ 1:55 am
I’ve been looking at the prices for Internet connection in Georgia and I’m not sure they seem any better than Armenia. In fact, as I can’t find a service that allows you to have unlimited access (they only seem to charge per minute), I’m intrigued.
Does anybody know what the main obstacles are regarding the cost of internet services in Georgia especially as they have no ArmenTel and when mobile phone service is reportedly better and cheaper?
It’s interesting (for me at least).
Comment by Onnik Krikorian — 11/30/2004 @ 8:20 am
We surely need a competitor with Armentel. I call my very close friend in Armenia (She is near the Yerevan) and I reach her after trying 10 times in almost 1 hour. Really bad coverage!
Comment by Hakob Gevorgian — 11/30/2004 @ 5:23 pm
Onnik wrote:
> Therefore, I’m kind of concerned when
> you start talking about having to now
> pay $70. What is this?
They are going to give you about 400 minutes for the monthly fee then you will have to pay 1 dram per a minute of internet connection.
So if you have the same evenings/nights/weekends internet as I do (7PM—9AM) it is going to be 20*14 hours*60 minutes*1 drams for weekdays plus 48*4*60*1 drams for weekends (I counted a month as 4 weeks) of course, in case you use the internet as intencively as I do.
So it is about 28320 drams (~$58 according to today’s exchange rate of 485 drams per a buck). Add 2 or 3 more days, also add the cost of cards if you need internet connection during a day (and sometimes I need) so it is going to be about $60-70 for the phone.
Comment by Karen Vrtanesyan — 12/5/2004 @ 2:46 am
As for Georgia a friend of mine came back recently after living there for about a year. He says he had a 256Kbit internet connection (and the speed was actually 10MBit to the provider which hosted bunch of staff on it’s own servers) with unlimited traffic for $30/month.
Of course, this is not the 768Kbit connection for $35/month I used to have in NYC but still it is much much better than the crappy connection we have here. Sometimes you get connected to an ISP then spend an hour trying to download 20-30 e-mail messages.
Comment by Karen Vrtanesyan — 12/5/2004 @ 2:52 am
>> bunch of staff
Sorry, bunch of stuff, of course.
Comment by Karen Vrtanesyan — 12/5/2004 @ 2:56 am
Complete explanation of new prices is available on armentel’s web site:
http://armentel.com/arm/news/news/news01.htm
Comment by Anonymous — 12/6/2004 @ 3:28 am