Perak Consumers Association (PCA) wants public phone providers to be more customer-oriented instead of only thinking about profits.

PCA president Abdul Rahman Said Alli said: "They should follow the example set by India which gives top priority to improving and upgrading its communication system while at the same time it is consumer friendly."

"The authorities there do not think of only making profits as they charge rates that are only 50 % of the charges that Malaysians pay here."

Rahman was commenting on the move by the government to reduce the duration for a 10 cents local call from three minutes to two minutes, due to escalating costs of maintaining and repairing payphones, especially from rampant vandalism.

Rahman stated public payphones are more expensive now and this move will affect the majority of users who are in the rural areas and lower income group.

"Will they improve the quality of their services because when we took a random survey, out of 10 payphones only two or three can be used," he said.

High cost of maintanence

joseph salang anak gandum 00 Deputy Information, Communications, Culture and Arts Minister Joseph Salang ( right ) said the restructuring in tariff for public phones services will boost efforts to improve the availability of convenient and quality payphones nationwide.

Rahman, however, is sceptical. He said as with all increase in tariffs, first there will promises made of better changes and quality services. Then down the line all is forgotten and it is back to square one.

"What about the handicapped people who will be greatly affected by the short duration in making local calls. What about emergency calls, are they free are subjected to charges?" asked Rahman.

Salang had stated that the new rates will mean the setting up of more public booths. For every two payphones installed in urban areas the public phone providers will have to install at least one payphone in rural areas.

The government guidelines also requires operators of public phone services to install at least one public phone per village nation wide.

There are currently four public phone providers, operating more than 100,000 payphones nationwide.