BEIRUT, July 16 (AFP) - Commitment to a 24-hour boycott of cellular telephone lines in Lebanon to force the government to cut rates exceeded 50 percent, organizers of the protest action said Friday.
"We held a large-scale poll with the help of various associations to call 4,000 subscribers. More than 50 percent of them had their lines switched off," Consumers Lebanon Association (CLA) president Zuheir Berro told AFP.
"We also called the personal phones of 158 parliament members and government ministers, and we found out that about 30 percent of them were switched off," he said.
Berro said the boycott was a warning to the government to cut rates, which remain among the highest in the world, or face further protest actions.
Officials at the telecommunication ministry were unavailable for comment when contacted by AFP, while mobile operators said results would be made available later Friday.
Users were asked to switch off their mobiles for 24 hours from Wednesday at midnight until Thursday at midnight in line with a call by CLA.
Its demand include charging consumers by seconds instead of minutes, lowering prices by 30 percent, cutting nighttime rates by 50 percent, scrapping fixed monthly fees of 25 dollars and offering pre-paid cards with extended expiration periods.
According to Berro's group, 500 minutes of cellular phone calls cost 121 dollars in Lebanon, compared to 65 dollars in Syria, 66 dollars in Jordan, 47 dollars in Cyprus, 42 dollars in Egypt and 39 dollars in the Emirates.
Lebanon has 850,000 mobile lines run on two networks by Kuwait's Mobile Telecommunication Company (MTC) and the German firm Detecon in return for a monthly fee of four million dollars each to the government.