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As soon as the indexation of the prices of mobile services is in the general conditions of the contract of the people with the mobile operator, the user does not have the right to terminate the contract without penalties, said Maria Boncheva, director of the directorate in the Commission for the Regulation of Communications (CRC) in the Commission for Economic Policy and innovations. This practice of the European Court and the EC is confirmed in 13 countries of the European Union, she pointed out, quoted by BTA.
“In the individual contracts of “Vivacom” and “Yetel – Bulgaria” there is a clause for indexation to inflation, and the user has agreed to it. As soon as the operator has raised the prices according to inflation, the increase is not illegal. The penalties are usually three monthly bills, but if the contract is open-ended, it can be terminated with one month’s notice,” said Boncheva.
The people’s representatives requested information from the mobile operators about the income and expenses they have, in order to find out if the price increase does not refer only to increasing the profits of the companies.
“In the General Terms and Conditions of the contracts, there is no clause for refusal of the service without penalty,” said Diana Kovacheva, national ombudsman.
“It is extremely unfair that the prices of mobile services are raised at the expense of the people, because the operators received compensation from the state for the high electricity prices last year. “Vivacom” decided that disabled people should not have their monthly subscription indexed, but “Yetel” does not have such a solution, Kovacheva added. Mobile operators can, but are not obliged to index the charges,” she added.
The discussion is related to “Vivacom” and “Yetel”, because “A1-Bulgaria” has not yet announced its decision on the indexation.
“Bulgaria is in the top ten in the ranking for mobile internet and the coverage in the country is 99.9 percent,” said Andreana Atanasova from the Alliance of the Technology Industry (ATI).
According to her, mobile operators’ expenses last year for energy were increased by 40 percent, despite compensations from the state for electricity expenses.
“The growth in fuel costs was over 25 percent last year,” she added.
“Employees of the operators have indexed salaries, we also take into account the appreciation of the dollar because we pay in dollars for transmission capacity, for copyrights of foreign programs, as well as for equipment,” said Atanasova.
