INTERNET PRICES COME DOWN IN ARMENIA

Pan Armenian News
29.06.2005 09:44

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Along with the reduction of cellular communication
prices ArmenTel telephone company will also reduce prices for
providing Internet channels, company Press Service head Hasmik
Chutinyan stated in a conversation with a reporter of the .am edition
of the PanARMENIAN.Net. In her words, the provided fiber optic line
that has 2Mb power will be reduced 24% (from $21 thousand to a bit
less than $16 thousand). H. Chutinyan considers the initiative of the
company will result in reduction of Internet prices for its ultimate
users. The new prices will come into effect July 1, 2005. In his
turn Arminco Internet provider company Technical Director Grigori
Saghyan remarked that based on the ArmenTel new tariff Arminco is
going to reduce dial-up and radio modem communication prices some 25%.
However, he noted that even given the “ArmenTel descent”, the prices
are not enough reduced. In his words, the prices of the satellite
communication channels for provider “covering” Armenia and adjacent
states makes some 6-8 thousand US dollars. Thereupon, shadow economy
develops in Armenia and the providing of illegal access to the Internet
by rather “modest” prices is available, Saghyan informed. “If ArmenTel
company reduces the tariff for the provided fiber optic channel to
$10 thousand, the illegal organizations will have to come out of
the shadow,” he supposed, adding Internet will become accessible to
everyone in Armenia.