As an Internet user, I note with interest the current review of Hongkong Telecom charges (South China Morning Post, April 2). Alex Arena, the director of the Office of the Telecommunications Authority (OFTA), has revealed that Hongkong Telecom, as many have long suspected, has been overcharging Internet users and making a large profit on the Public Non-Exclusive Network Service(PNETS) charge. On the other hand, Mr Arena claims on Hongkong Telecom's behalf that if the current system of free local calls continues, rentals would have to be increased in order to 'subsidise a small number of users who make long calls, such as Internet users'. This is a curious explanation. The PNETS charge levied on Internet users is the only exception to the rule that local calls are free. If Internet users are already being overcharged by 50 per cent, how on earth do these Internet users still end up being subsidised by other users? It would seem that Hongkong Telecom wishes to have its cake and eat it, too, and this effort is aided and abetted by the authorities. Hongkong Telecom already makes handsome annual profits by any standards. Yet it continues to try and gouge its customers with a truly astounding corporate greed. Will OFTA do anything more than asking Hongkong Telecom to 'set up a new tariff in the next month or two'? Presumably this means that Hongkong Telecom has been given official permission to continue to overcharge PNETS users. Will Hongkong Telecom now refund all excess charges to users? Will OFTA even pretend to give Hongkong Telecom a slap on the wrist for being greedy? In the short period before 1997, this could be seen as collusion between a British-owned company and the colonial authorities at the expense of the local population. Is this the image that OFTA wishes to project to the world? NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED
