Let's look at the details. TSTT has bundled its services into three packages; Gold, Silver and Bronze. This for all local calling; the package fees are $1,000 Gold, $500 Silver and $250 for the bronze package. There is no mention of the fees without the packages.
The bundled minutes to fixed lines per month are 5,000, 2,500, and 1,250 respectively. Now this plan on face value seems ethical, especially when you think that the majority of the shares is owned by the government and by extension the people. The government always looks after the people, as they say, the government is the people.
Essentially the TSTT contract (this was called SmartChoice) bounds you to pay a per minute fee of $.20. That is an across the board fee regardless of the package. That does not seems reasonable considering the Gold subscriber is forking out 4 times as much as a Bronze subscriber. But when you compare the number of minutes each gets it appears fair. But it's the other parts of the plan that provides the real revenue for TSTT. Here is the problem...
Most people on these plans overestimate their talk time. The only way know their cumulative time online for the month is when they get a bill. At that point it's too late. This believe it or not is one element of the plan that generates significant revenue for TSTT. When a subscriber goes "outside of the bundle" the charges begin to pile up.
Ironically, if you examine the rate chart carefully you will see that “Fixed line call outside bundled minutes” is best if you get the silver package with a $.20 charge for over the limit,(possibly a typo). Both the gold and bronze package are charged at $.25 additional cents per minute. But that's not what really sends your bills through the roof.
The core revenue in these rates are in the land line to cell phone which is what occurs mostly in Trinidad and Tobago. Notice that with each of the plans you get a very limited number of minutes for land line to cell phones. The Gold packages gets you 100 minutes and the Bronze you get 25 minutes a month. Conceivably 25 minutes can be consumed in just one call.
Land line to cell phones make up the majority of the calls in Trinidad because of the nature of the telecommunications market. A safe guess is that about 90% of land line calls are to cell phones. All these calls are billed at a rate of .80 cents per minute. Like we would say in school "dah eh fair".
They use the same rate formula time limit with "outside the bundle" on international calls. Except that the rates are even higher per minute. International calls are segmented into the following regions each with a different rate for different times of the day and week. The regions are:
US, Canada, UK & Ireland
Caribbean, Venezuela & India
The rest of the world
As you can see from TSTT rate chart prime time 6 AM - 6 PM is charged at the highest rate ranging from $1 to $2.50 per minute. Per minutes fees for the rest of the world is a discounted 20% from the highest rate. Plus you pay a $1 surcharge for calling anywhere in the "rest of the world".
The point is that if “our” government owns 51 percent of TSTT and “our” government is "we" i.e. we are doing this to ourselves. Why should anyone complain? The fee structure seems not too well thought out but we have been living with it for awhile.
It's easy to understand if this was being done by Cable and Wireless but “we own” the majority shares.
The new PP Government was voted in on a platform of change. Do you think that they will change this?
Thankfully, there are alternatives but most people are not aware of them. Follow this blog and you will find out about strategies that can significantly reduce your phone charges.
Stay tuned for the next post when we look at Digicel and Flow to see what they bring to the table.
In the meanwhile, share any experience you may have with TSTT here.
Be well and stay blessed.
