Cesky Telecom is reportedly considering the consolidation of local and long-distance tariff as of 2003 (probably from February). The single, unified tariff should be considerably lower than mobile tariffs, and should be competitive with the tariffs of alternative telecommunication operators on the Czech market (the Czech Press Agency said that the high-traffic unified tariff would be closer to CZK 1.4 per impulse, which corresponds to the current local-call tariff vs. the current long-distance tariff of CZK 3.6 per minute).
This would follow telephone renumbering in the Czech Republic, which took place on September 22, and which leads to a greater volume of local calls at the expense of long-distance calls. We believe that a new unified tariff would indeed have to approximate the current local-call tariffs (e.g., approx. 61% lower than the high-traffic LD tariff) for competitive reasons. The recent telephone renumbering is not expected to significantly affect call revenues at Cesky Telecom, it should be noted.
Jiri Soustruznik