Indonesia fines mobile firms over text price fixing

JAKARTA, June 18 (Reuters) - Indonesia's anti-trust agency (KPPU) has fined five firms a total of about $8.3 million for fixing tariffs on mobile phone text messages, the head of the investigating team said on Wednesday.

The KPPU launched a probe last year over suspicions that firms were operating a cartel to keep tariffs artificially high on text messaging, breaching competition law.

The agency fined the country's biggest mobile operator, PT Telekomunikasi Seluler (Telkomsel), PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk (TLKM.JK) (Telkom), PT Excelcomindo Tbk (EXCL.JK), PT Bakrie Telecom Tbk (BTEL.JK) and PT Mobile-8 Telecom Tbk (FREN.JK) a total of around 77 billion rupiah ($8.29 million).

The two largest fines of 25 billion rupiah each were for Telkomsel and Excelcomindo.

"We conclude that Excelcomindo, Telkomsel, Telkom, Bakrie and Mobile8 practised a cartel," said Dedie S. Martadisastra, the head of the KPPU's investigative team.

The firms had charged tariffs in a range of 250 to 350 rupiah (per text message) between 2004 to April 2008, while a competitive tariff should have been set at 114 rupiah, the official said.

KPPU said the fixing of tariffs had caused 2.83 trillion rupiah of losses for Indonesian consumers.

Ignatius Andy, a lawyer for Telkomsel, said the firm was considering whether to appeal.

KPPU also investigated last year alleged price fixing in mobile phone calls by the country's two biggest mobile phone operators, Telkomsel and PT Indosat Tbk (ISAT.JK).

Telkomsel was ordered to lower tariffs by at least 15 percent.

The anti-trust agency also ordered the Singapore government's investment arm Temasek [TEM.UL], which through its units has stakes in Telkomsel and in Indosat, to sell its stake in one of the two firms within two years.

Temasek, which indirectly owns Indosat via Asia Mobile Holdings, recently moved to sell its stake to Qatar Telecom QTEL.QA for $1.35 billion.

($1=9,283 rupiah) (Reporting by Tyagita Silka, Writing by Muhamad Al Azhari, editing by Ed Davies)