Line Increase Rental Slated

Nelson Mail, 2/04/06, by Bernadette Cooney


The cost of local toll calls could be on the way down but charges for a standard home line rental are to rise next month.

A $2.35 increase in the standard line rental comes into effect in March with Telecom saying it's the first in two years and is in keeping with inflation.
The move has been slated by Motueka Greypower president John Krammer, who says it's a "bit rich'' given the amount of local toll boundaries imposed from the Motueka calling area.

The cost of a standard line rental a month will rise from $39.85 to $42.20.

"It's another example of profits being more important then service. When it's a toll call to just about everywhere within Tasman district, I'd sooner see them do away with local tolls before they put line rentals up,'' Mr Krammer said.

Telecom made it clear late last year that local toll call boundaries would stay. The Nelson Bays calling area has four toll regions, making it a toll call for most towns between Nelson, Motueka, Golden Bay and Murchison.

Telecom spokesman Sean Martin said the line rental increase would not apply to customers on Anytime, Anytime Plus, Budget Link and 60s Plus call plans.

He said local toll boundaries could not be removed or shifted under the terms of Telecom's service obligations as agreed with the Government.

"We can't remove or change boundaries if it meant a single customer would be worse off, and in Motueka's case some would be better off and some worse,'' Mr Martin said.

However, he said a new regional calling plan being trialled in Taranaki may provide some relief from the cost of local toll calls.

If successful the calling plan could be introduced in other regions later this year. "This plan would be optional and only apply to landlines but would offer unlimited local toll calls within a region for a monthly fee,'' Mr Martin said.

The unavailability of toll call restriction in Motueka, when a PIN number is used to control homeline toll bars, would also remain unchanged, he said.

All 4309 residential customers on the Motueka exchange cannot access the PIN number service, unless they chose to re-route via the Nelson network and change their phone number.

In a recent publication by Motueka-based Community Action for People and Planet, telephone users were urged to use pre-paid calling cards to save money on local toll calls. Spokesman Duncan Eddy said, "the more people who shop elsewhere the quicker Telecom is going to reconsider its ridiculous toll-calling boundaries.''