Badan Regulasi Telekomunikasi Indonesia, the communications regulator in the world's fourth-most-populous nation, will reportedly increase the cost of SIM cards by 5,000 per cent. The move may seem odd given the nation has the world's 43rd highest GDP and ranks 158th for GDP per person, at just $US5100 per capita. Easy and …

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Monday 22nd July 2013 06:45 GMT Anonymous Coward

Indonesia ponders 500% SIM card price hike

Badan Regulasi Telekomunikasi Indonesia, the communications regulator in the world's fourth-most-populous nation, will reportedly increase the cost of SIM cards by 5,000 per cent.

(10*100)/0.2=5000 : Headline loses.

Glad to see the networks tightening up on that annoying consumer choice fad though.

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Monday 22nd July 2013 06:59 GMT Anonymous Coward

I got my last four SIM cards for free.

What's the story here?

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1. Monday 22nd July 2013 09:27 GMT an it guy
  
  Sim cards in the UK are free, but we get number portability. You don't in Indonesia. That's what's going to cause problems. If number portability were available, the changing of sim cards would be an administration pain, but not one of update your contact list as someone gets a new number.
  
  20%/month would start to get annoying to me
  
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2. Monday 22nd July 2013 09:36 GMT Alan Brown
  
  The story here
  
  Is buried at the end of paragraph 6 - Indonesia is operating a "pay to receive" SMS system.
  
  Which means that TXT spam is not only irritatting, it's expensive. (I'm surprised that some irritated recipients haven't "discouraged" the senders in rather personal ways, given how hot-blooded a lot of Indonesians get)
  
  Increasing the price of SIMs won't make a blind bit of difference while that model persists, so hopefully the carrots include zero-cost to receive and the ability to filter TXT messages.
  
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Monday 22nd July 2013 07:44 GMT Anonymous Coward

"I got my last four SIM cards for free.

What's the story here?"

So? The story is that companies are giving out SIM cards to build marketing lists and as a result there is a high-turnover of SIM cards/number recycling, meaning extra costs for the networks and a lot of wasted time/money/resources. The price hike is to prevent it. Did you read the article?

The fact we can get SIM cards for free in the UK has nothing to do with it, we clearly don't have the same problem, I've been on the same number/SIM for at least 10 years and rarely have to update my contact's numbers.

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Monday 22nd July 2013 08:31 GMT frank ly

I predict ....

A secondary market, or maybe swap shop meets.

This problem would not occur if the telcos treated people as clients/customers, instead of as cattle to be fattened, prodded and poked for profit.

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Monday 22nd July 2013 09:51 GMT Velv

"deplete subscribers' pre-paid balances under pay-to-receive arrangements"

A perfect example of what happens when the receiver has to pay the termination fee. Ofcom - don't do it!!! And don't let the Telco's make you think it's a good thing.

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Monday 22nd July 2013 19:24 GMT zanto

ya well

here's hoping those sims have 3 des encryption.

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Monday 22nd July 2013 19:35 GMT Rukario

Punishing the innocent

Problem: Unscrupulous marketers (a tautology, I know) are sending text spam to consumers, depleting their PAYG balances and/or raising their bills; in other words, postage-due marketing. This causes the consumers to ditch that SIM and change phone numbers in order to abate the pricey onslaught of text spam.

Solution: Charge consumers more for a new SIM, making it more difficult for them to change phone numbers from one "in the wild", and exposing them to exponentially-increasing volumes of text spam, which they will have to pay for.

Makes you wonder who the regulator is working for.

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