National mobile operator EMT has dropped plans to change from a second-based to a minute-based rate on calls following a media backlash and word of their biggest corporate clients - their core market as things stand these days, in terms of profit - deserting them in droves. The plan was announced in an understandably not very high profile way with the promise that since the average phone call in the EMT network lasts 58 seconds, the changes would mean very little to the purse strings of Joe Blogs. This little subterfuge backfired on the company though when journalists began filling column inches with their own calculations based on old bills - revealing that Joe Blogs would in fact end up paying upwards of 50% more every month for the same amount (or fewer) calls.
Its unpopularity compounded by big business threatening to walk over the issue, the plan was sunk, and EMT today announced that they had scrapped it. "We listened to what our clients had to say and came to the conclusion that the market is not ready to move on from second-based call rates," said the company's chairman, who thanked EMT's customer's for their [vocal] feedback.
However, the company has not ruled out introducing the system in future, and will be ushering it in through the back door from the 1st of January with competitively priced packages operating on the minute-based system. An anonymous editorial in Postimees today views the inflated costs that such a system would bring with it as inevitable, pointing out that EMT and other operators have reached a point where the market is so saturated with low-priced deals that they will have no choice but to start charging more.
There are 116 active SIM cards in Estonia per 100 people.
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