INTERNET PRICES COME DOWN IN ARMENIA

PanARMENIAN.Net - Along with the reduction of cellular communication prices ArmenTel telephone company will also reduce prices for providing Internet channels, company Press Service head Hasmik Chutinyan stated in a conversation with a reporter of the .am edition of the PanARMENIAN.Net In her words, the provided fiber optic line that has 2Mb power will be reduced 24% (from $21 thousand to a bit less than $16 thousand). H. Chutinyan considers the initiative of the company will result in reduction of Internet prices for its ultimate users. The new prices will come into effect July 1, 2005. In his turn Arminco Internet provider company Technical Director Grigori Saghyan remarked that based on the ArmenTel new tariff Arminco is going to reduce dial-up and radio modem communication prices some 25%. However, he noted that even given the «ArmenTel descent», the prices are not enough reduced. In his words, the prices of the satellite communication channels for provider «covering» Armenia and adjacent states makes some 6-8 thousand US dollars. Thereupon, shadow economy develops in Armenia and the providing of illegal access to the Internet by rather «modest» prices is available, Saghyan informed. «If ArmenTel company reduces the tariff for the provided fiber optic channel to $10 thousand, the illegal organizations will have to come out of the shadow,» he supposed, adding Internet will become accessible to everyone in Armenia.