GOVERNMENT DECISION ON ARMENTEL SPARKS PROTESTS

A1 Plus | 20:01:36 | 09-11-2004 | Social |

Telephone stations workers intend to go on strike to express their
attitude toward Armenian government’s recent decision giving ArmenTel
sole control over IP telephony.

Amendments to the company license gave it unrestricted powers, said
Mushegh Militonyan, one of the initiators of the strike, at a news
conference held Tuesday.

The strike initiators fear the government decision will pose threat
to market free competition and will hobble information technologies
development in the republic.

According to their predictions as many as 250 companies will stop
functioning and 10,000 people will lose their jobs. The government
move will strike hard at low-income families, they said.

Mushegh Militonyan said IP centers are working on licenses providing
a right to convey sound signals.

Artem Khachatryan, director of Center for Analysis and Study of
Labor, finds justice minister David Harutyunyan’s statement that
the government step is taken to retain balance in consumer prices an
absurd idea.

He is convinced consumer prices will go up. Per-minute price for talk
with the U.S. residents will leap from 60 and 80 drams to 500.