The aim of this work is to study the evolution of prices for fixed telephone service (FTS) practised by Portugal’s historic operator (PT Comunicações, S.A., hereinafter also designated as PTC) between 1998 and 2003, based on each provision’s weight in the FTS basket and taking into account the usage profiles and average annual prices of the following components:
- Installation of an analogue line;
- Monthly rental of an analogue line;
- Local communications;
- Regional communications;
- Long distance communications (national);
- International communications (to fixed networks).
Fixed-mobile traffic and internet-related traffic are not included in the scope of this study, nor are calls terminating in the networks of other operators in Portugal.
The average annual prices for the various FTS components were duly weighted per the time period in which each price table was in effect. The prices considered when drawing up the study were those practiced by the historic Portuguese operator for calls in its own network and for international calls to fixed networks according to the standard price table, i.e., the price table automatically applied to consumers who do not express preference for any other applicable price table option.
Note that the “Economic Package” (EP), a price plan consisting of an automatic discount in the monthly rental and in traffic to residential customers whose consumption was less than 9.78 euros, was replaced by an optional plan – the Low Consumption Plan (LCP) – on 21 May 2003, after a three-month transition period in which both coexisted.
The LCP is an optional price plan designed for customers who consume less, with the following characteristics:
- 15% discount on the value of the monthly rental;
- 20% discount on the first 5 euros consumption of telephone communications in the country;
- Augment of 100% on the next 5 euros consumption of telephone communications in the country;
- Normal price for consumption that exceeds 10 euros of telephone communications in the country.
The intercalary consistency of this price study with that of the study published for the 1998-2001https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=39789 period would at first sight imply consideration of the LCP’s effects in this work. But ANACOM does not have data on the proportion of FTS subscribers who have opted for this service. On the other hand and although, as stated above, this price plan is meant to reduce the effects on small consumers of the removal of automatic EP discounts, the fact is that the LCP is an optional tariff plan, like many others provided by PT, and its impact on consumer invoices is not possible to include in price evolution studies. For this reason, the decision was made to only include in this study the price evolution of the standard price table between 1998 and 2003 (estimate).
Nevertheless, and to enable comparison with the published study for the 1998-2001 period, chapter 4 also presents the evolution of prices between 1998 and 2002, including the effect of EP beneficiary customers during that period.
The following conclusions regarding the standard price table stand out, in accumulated terms (1998/2003), in the study:
- There were real decreases in the price of local and regional calls, of 4.8% and 36.2% respectively;
- There were real decreases in the price of long-distance and international calls, of 64.7% and 48.1% respectively;
- The installation price of a new telephone line has been unchanged since February 1998, resulting in a real reduction of 15.1%;
- The monthly rental price presented a real increase of 4.2%;
- There was a real reduction of 15.7% in the price of the basket for fixed telephone service.
