Clipping of news on Brazilian Culture, Law and Citizenship
 


Consumer News

Faced with alternatives to traditional telephony, market discusses the need for recovery rate (1)

This article was translated by an automatic translation system, and was therefore not reviewed by people.

 


Fixed based on alternative technology is the promise of business as Embratel, Net, GVT and TIM, which airs a new market to exploit hitherto stagnant, with the consent of the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel), new forms of services, sold in fixed lines. Devices are very similar to those we have at home but, instead of the old and spent couple of copper, using technologies such as CDMA (if the Freedom of Embratel), Voice over IP (Net Phone) to mobile (TIM Fixed ).

Change the technology and form of the fixed service charges, as these companies began to assemble packages that in some cases bring embedded signature, and other, zero tariff. It is however necessary to emphasize that there is always a fixed charge, even small or through franchising.

The idea is to seduce the public preferred not want or can not pay by the signature of basic telephony, the approximately U.S. $ 40 in the account sent, every month, the concessionaires of Fixed Switched Telephone Service (STFC) and Hi, Brazil Telecom, CTBC, Telefonica and Sercomtel. This collection, dating from the auction that privatized the system Telebras in 1998, is being challenged by consumer protection authorities and there are already tens of thousands of cases handled in the courts claiming the illegality of the fee, which was born of the need for utilities expand their networks.

For experts, Net Phone, Free and Fixed TIM may be a way to get the fixed telephony market of stagnation, which became even more evident in the face of incredible disparity between the number of customers of mobile and fixed - are more than 160 million wireless enabled, with 40 million fixed phones, adding residential and corporate customers.

According to Guilherme Zatti, director of business houses of Embratel, the Freedom, which has arrangements pre and post-paid, has 1.8 million customers, while the Net Phone, Net of service (the same group of Embratel) is being used by 1.6 million people. Together, the two products totaled 3.5 million users.


To sign the Free, the user chooses plans from $ 24, with option to reload monthly. There are also post-paid arrangements with unlimited calls to fixed to fixed from $ 50.

- Brazil has 33 million active residential fixed lines. Embratel and Net have together 10% market share, earned in less than three years. We have 57 million households, but only 23 million have a fixed telephone. Polls indicate, however, that people have lack of phone, because the rates of pre-paid phones are very high and because the fixed line is used to open place in the curriculum and credit - says.

The next step in Embratel is the expansion of coverage for most of the Free one hundred cities, which has been approved by Anatel. According to William, the plan is to reach five million users this year, focusing mainly on number portability. Embratel is already responsible for 35% of migration of fixed, remembering only that the service will come to Brazil all in March.

Another challenge that is fixed in the TIM by TIM service Fixed that the USA cellular network to determine the position of the user, who chooses a place like "home." According to Walter Aoki, national manager of the convergence of TIM, the signature is a basic barrier to membership of the fixed telephony customers. Looking in public, the operator has packages from $ 29.90, entitled to 250 minutes of local calls to fixed numbers.


- According to research performed by some 35 million customers of fixed telephony, 30% said they would like to change operator because they are not happy. It is a huge growing market, which has increased in light of these new products - Valter says.

Do not stop the signing but reduce its cost was the option of the operator GVT, which bet on the association between signature sets (whose value is not as high as that charged by concessionaires) and packet services.

- In telephony, there were no plans to target different profiles. We decided to create plans that allow one to twenty lines, and the choice of packages of minutes and even the use of different lines in different addresses - Sanfelice says Ricardo, director of marketing and products of GVT.

In fall, the companies provide services typical of mobile devices in the "fixed" installed on the client's home, such as identification of calls, answering machine and sending torpedoes.

- In eight years here, just lost the concession lines, while the attackers (autorizat) do not grow - says Ricardo.

Swimming against the tide, the dealers insist on collecting the signature, provided in the contract. This contract which requires, by contrast, targets for universal fixed-line and pay for telecommunications services (PSTs). The problem is that, according to the Brazilian Association for Consumer Protection (Test Pro), this universality has to be made without the signature of the rate has been lowered or eliminated. Now the discussion is the expansion of new broadband networks and the use of income from the signing to enable this process.

The cause of the controversy two months ago is that the concessionaires are offering a rate adjusted to a set of goals for universal, only that an obligation is suspended by injunction which temporarily invalidated the duration of the deployment of the infrastructure of the broadband network.

Besides the competition, which militates against the signature of the concerned fixed the Pro Test is responsible for bringing into the regulatory discussions on the recovery. According to the lawyer Flávia Lefevre, founder of Pro Test and representative of the users in the advisory board of Anatel, the signature that makes more people have access to fixed lines, with hostages in pre-paid phones.

- They pay the fourth most expensive fare on the planet. This is illegal and affront to the principle guaranteeing the right to an essential public service - he says.

According to Joao de Deus Pinheiro de Macedo, Director of Planning's Executive Hi, can not be forgotten the high tax burden practiced in Brazil. John recalls that the basic signature is not unique to the Brazilian market, but of all countries, with the exception of Guatemala and Iran

- We have the highest tax burden in the world. Of R $ 40 paid by the consumer, he delivered a check of $ 27 to U.S. $ 13 concession and the government. The public authority has the means to mitigate the issue of tax. The IPTU and IR are proportional to income, but the phone is not - says John

In April 2008, the decree of the new General Plan on Universal (PGMU) - in that order flows in the maintenance of accounts of the collection of signatures, according Flávia - was the match to the beginning of further discussions on the obligations of universalization of fixed by the concessionaires.

Flávia Second, they pressure the government and Anatel in order to change the PSTs for the expansion of broadband networks (backhaul). That would Flávia says in illegal, since the provision refers to service STFC (telephony) and not broadband. Spreads the decree, the Pro has preliminary test in November 2008, which prevents the exchange of bonds.

- The backhaul is not described as a goal of universal - Flávia says.

The concern, says the lawyer, is the use of public money (from the exploitation of services STFC) for building private broadband networks.



Source: O Globo Online

Our stories are taken in full of the sites of our partners. Therefore, we can not change the contents of these cases even of typing errors.

This article was translated by an automatic translation system, and was therefore not reviewed by people.

Important:
The JurisWay site does not interfere in the work provided by doctrine, why only reflect the opinions, ideas and concepts of their authors.


  Subjects list
 
  Copyright (c) 2006-2009. JurisWay - All rights reserved.