Internet tariffs may be cut in Azerbaijan
By Nigar Orujova
Azerbaijan Internet Society (ISOC Azerbaijan) discusses the issue of reducing tariffs on Internet services.
The news was announced in a statement by Chairman of ISOC Galib Gurbanov on March 3.
Internet service providers are currently providing consultations regarding further reduction of Internet services for end consumers, he said.
"Primary offers from ISPs have been submitted to the Azerbaijan Communications and Information Technologies Ministry. I suppose the consumers will be able to experience the benefit of the new tariffs in the first half of this year. The issue is significant cuts in prices for Internet access. The cost of services for the end user could be lowered by 30 percent on a percentage ratio," Gurbanov said.
However, Gurbanov said he strongly opposes the approach to which ISPs resorts over every tariff reduction. The practice of maintaining a tariff strip in the background of increasing Internet traffic in the proposed package is not effective, and does not lead to expected results, he said.
"While maintaining the price level, providers often increase the carrying capacity of the Internet. I think this is not the right approach to solving the problem of price formation on the Internet services market. There is a need for an individual approach for each user category.
"Undoubtedly, there is a category of users who do not need high speed, nor spend much time watching streaming video content. These users will be interested in buying a package at an affordable price which will include one or two megabits per second of Internet traffic," he said.
Depending on the selected tariff plan, charges for users for unlimited ADSL-access range from 10 manats ($13) for 1,024 kb/s to 80 manats ($102) for 10,240 kb/s.
Earlier in December, the ICT Ministry submitted a report on the preparation of a plan to reduce the tariffs for Internet services.
The Azerbaijan Tariff Council adopted a decision to reduce some telecommunication services' tariffs from January 2014, which may affect the reduction of tariffs for Internet services as well.
Azerbaijan currently leads the way among the Commonwealth of Independent States in terms of internet penetration among individual users, and broadband internet penetration among individual users.
About 40 internet providers are functioning in the country at present, some 70 percent of the population uses the Internet, and 35 percent of them use broadband Internet services.