JT asked to freeze land-line prices
Friday 25th November 2011, 2:59PM GMT.
John Curran, the executive director of the JCRA
JERSEY Telecom has been told to freeze its land-line prices while an investigation into its pricing structure is undertaken.
The Island’s competition regulator also wants to see more choice for Islanders when it comes to choosing a home phone operator.
The Jersey Competition Regulatory Authority has started formal proceedings designed to offer Islanders alternatives to the current choice of fixed-line provider.
Although JT dominates the land-line market, it is also involved with the other landline providers – Sure and Newtel – which work with JT’s wholesale business to offer fixed-line products.
The competition regulator has said that consumers would benefit from having a choice of providers similar to that seen in the mobile phone market. The same push for greater choice in fixed-line providers is also being undertaken in Guernsey.
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Should be reduced not frozen.. or even scrapped altogether – been fleecing islanders for years
90% of my phone bill is the line rental!
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same here…
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Me too
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Most months my phone bill is just the line rental so I can have my trusty internet. Everything else comes from Sure who continue to out price JT. Every time I am renewing a mobile or internet tariff I go to JT as I want to spend my ££’s with the ‘island’ company. Then I see the prices and give up.
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Mine also!
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Can we also have an investigation into the prices they charge for mobile handsets, I recently looked into upgrading mine. JT Samsung Galaxy Ace £226 handset only – Amazon £125, how the hell can they be over £100 cheaper that’s nearly 50%
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The mobile phone companies charge more if you want to buy the handset outright, this is to try and get you to sign-up for a contract which is worth more to them than a handset.
Iphone 4s 16gb available from a Jersey mobile store for £699, the same model is £499 from apple themselves.
If you look at anything this island sells it can be found cheaper online and they wonder why people buy from the internet and not from the high street.
If only there was a way of getting groceries sent over??
Can anyone tell me how a Jersey based shop can purchase goods VAT free and still charge more than the UK?
When are people going to realise that an offer for example, 3 for £10 (Co-Op meat)is the same in the UK they pay %20 VAT we don’t pay VAT and add %5 GST but still seem to charge more than the UK.
If a jar off coffee says RRP £2.39 then this is what it sells for in the UK, so why do we pay more?? it is not GST.
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I haven’t bought a mobile locally for years for that exact reason, a SIM free handset from Amazon or Play is always much cheaper than the “discounted” upgrade prices locally
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The JCRA was established in May 2001 and quite frankly, it is unacceptable that it has taken it a full decade before even STARTING the process of opening up JT’s landline monopoly to competition – a process that will probably take several years to come to fruition. Talk about shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted- a whole generation of former JT landline customers (including myself) closed their landline accounts in desperation years ago and switched solely to mobile to save money. It is very unlikely we would go back to landlines now- the genie is out of the bottle. Thankfully, since the introduction of mobile internet using a dongle, one no longer needs to pay extortionate JT landline rentals in order to be connected to the internet.
Too late, too late, too late.
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There is competition for the most profitable areas of telecommunications, that being private circuits for business customers, and Broadband and Mobile for consumer and business. Landline competition won’t set the island alight, Broadband on its own is what is required as a product, which will reduce costs for consumers, but I think some of the comments above come from people who have no clue about how economies of scale affects other islands too, like Guernsey (Cable & Wireless are more expensive than JT for broadband) and the Isle Of Mans pricing is in line with JT.
It would be ridiculous to ask the regulator to get involved with handset prices, and no mobile network is that concerned with selling a handset at its retail price, they want their customers locked into contracts and subsidise the handsets that way.
Part of my job involves sourcing IT and Telecom equipment, and JT are often cheaper or in the ball park of the other 2, and I choose them because of the support they offer, and that it is a Jersey company. If they are way out on price for a reduction or service then I sometimes have to choose the other networks, but that’s the beauty of shopping around.
To those that buy their handsets off Amazon or Play, well fair play, but if it fails under warranty, you will have a frustrating time getting it sorted. If you buy it locally, you will have local support. Trouble is most whingers on these forums want online prices but gold plated support.
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George – To those that buy their handsets off Amazon or Play, well fair play, but if it fails under warranty, you will have a frustrating time getting it sorted. If you buy it locally, you will have local support. Trouble is most whingers on these forums want online prices but gold plated support.
George how common is failure with modern ahndsets, it’s a hell of a premium to pay on the off change, I’ll take my chances and save 50%
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The same goes for any device, you can buy cheap online and hope it doesn’t go wrong, but the ball ache involved if it does usually brings the realisation that having local support is often a good idea. What I dont understand is someone exercising their right to choose, but still moaning about having to have had to make that choice. The 16GB iPhone 4 S was £759 at JT, £699 at Airtel and …..£909 at Sure. So only JT are expensive? Maybe you should ask the JCRA to interrogate Sure over their extortionate pricing at launch? I bet these 3 networks are delighted that overly demanding people like you take their business elsewhere and only take a SIM from them. Saves them the endless complaints you must no doubt bring!
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In relation to Jerry Gosselin’s comment about it taking 10 years, that certainly hit the nail on the head! There was a letter from Graeme Marett in Wednesday nights JEP having a go about the financing of the fibre upgrade that will benefit all the telcos operating here, now that the regulator is onto freeing up access to JT’s network. It’s ironic that the the very same Graeme Marett was employed by the JCRA and did sweet FA in making any impact while being the JCRA telecommunication case officer! I’d be keeping a low profile if I’d failed like all the original JCRA members did, who weren’t accountable themselves, and had licence paying telcos complain about the way they blew their money!
JCRA version 3 appears to be the one that is finally making its mark.
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Where is the sense in this?
Once upon a time there was only one (States owned) telephone company and all the profits were returned to the States treasury.
Now we have three companies and only one will be returning profits to the States treasury.
If this company is made less profitable, will GST increase to cover this loss?
Jersey is too small to follow the UK and have unlimited competition in certain basic sectors.
Look at what competition has done to the Post Office- ruined it and now we are not getting the benefits of a decent return to the treasury, people are being laid off, the service is suffering and a few non-Jersey companies are creaming off the lucrative parts of the postal service and Jersey Post is left to take all the flack for not being able to maintain a premium service on the unprofitable daily delivery rounds.
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Thats the problem a gain in one area will mean a loss in another. If people want to pay more GST and have cheaper phone bills its up to them. However no doubt they will be whinging when it happens.
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We pay £1200 per year with JT for two mobiles (not heavy users) broadband and landline (again not heavy users) which is blooming ridiculous! Something will have to give but have heard allegedly that if you switch to companies other than JT for landline or broadband JT basically ignore you and drag their heels you if you suffer tech problems with your landline. So JT still has a monopoly! I still wonder why we appear to pay through the nose for telecommunication services when I have seen first hand people in third world west African countries happily affording mobiles on wages of just $10 a week!
I take it the west must be subsidizing these countries to get them hooked on mobiles!
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Oh and let the madness begin!
This is exactly what they did to BT back in the UK, yes prices were cheaper from alternative suppliers but the service could often be worse and if anything went wrong then the SLA (service level agreements) could mean days or even weeks without that service.
The actual price reductions that BT carried out, were not to do with extra competition, but rather from cost saving on equipment/in house service teams/ smarter work flow etc…. if anything the increased competition caused prices to reduce by a lesser margin because the company had to ofset the potential losses from selling bulk data transfer to its competitors.
Jersey Telecom has a tiny number of customers, comparer to BT. may of its costs are very similar which explains the higher line and phone call costs. If they are pushing out faster services, then eventually these upgrades should be completed and then the costs to the consumer should drop.
I fully agree that the cost of data is too high, I still shudder when i look at the cost of my tiny 2mb broadband connection, if the regulator is doing anything then they should be forcing JT to slash the “entry” level broadband pricing… if your on 2mb like me then you can barely get any internet services to work, 8mb should be the minimum, and we should be getting it at the cost of the current 2mb service.
Come on JT make effiencies and slash your broadband prices.
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