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Hiking its rates for a technology that’s emerging as an attractive cost-saver in this recession, a Stockholm-based telecom provider this week announced that its customers in Europe and Asia will see telephony subscription prices rise about $16 per month.

 

Officials at TeliaSonera say the change marks the first price increase in fixed telephony services in about eight years. The company serves Nordic and Baltic countries, in Spain and the emerging markets of Eurasia, including Russia and Turkey.

 

According to Stefan Trampus, head of broadband services at Telia, customers in recent years have seen the variable per-minute price of phone calls steadily fall, in some cases by as much as 50 percent.

 

“This fall, combined with the steady price of fixed subscriptions over the past eight years, has meant that consumers have been able to reduce their costs for fixed telephony,” Trampus said.

 

Telia’s infrastructure company, Skanova, has put a new price list in place for telecom operators using the copper network – the reason for the increase. With the change, Telia is offering customers combination packages for telephony, broadband and TV.

 

It’s been about a month since Skanova told its carrier customers that it would increase the price of access to the copper network. That increase is a result of the ongoing shift in technology and rising costs per connection, and is the reason behind the increase from Telia.

 

The move could help Telia sell more of its “triple play” services in its targeted region. As the figure on the right shows, the company's products are spread fairly evenly between broadband and mobility services in different parts of the world.

 

In Latin America, as TMCnet’s Calvin Azuri reported recently, IBBS and Power & Tel reportedly are forging a partnership to provide triple play service.

 

“Power & Tel (News - Alert) will now serve as a reseller in Central America, South America, Mexico and the Caribbean for IBBS’ Broadband Explorer diagnostics and provisioning software,” Azuri reports. “IBBS (News - Alert) provides mission-critical OSS software and services for global broadband Internet Service Providers and tier-2 cable operators.”

  

The chief executive officer of IBBS, David Keil (News - Alert), said that as a company built by cable veterans to serve the cable industry, IBBS looks forward to teaming with Power &Tel to expand the reach of solutions tailored to the specific needs of cable providers in Latin American markets.

 

“Power and Tel has excellent relationships and a reputation for providing very high customer service and was a natural partner for IBBS,” Keil said. “I am confident that our joint efforts in Latin America will lead to significant success for both organizations.”

 

Officials at Telia say the trend of buying multiple services from a single supplier is still strong.

 

Trampus said the company would send letters to all of our customers affected by the price increase with more information.

 

“We will also reward those who buy multiple services from us and offer attractive combination packages for telephony, broadband and TV,” Trampus said. “For many customers, this will mean lower prices than what they pay today.”