The social tariff is a financial reduction granted on phone bills.The potential beneficiaries of this tariff are the persons over 65 years old, the persons over 18 years old with a handicap of more than 66%, the persons who are beneficiaries of an integration income, the hearing-impaired persons, the persons who underwent laryngectomy and the military war blinded.
Which operators are obliged to provide the social telephone tariff ?
Who can benefit from the social telephone tariff ?
What do reductions consist of ?
How can you benefit from the social telephone tariff ?
Which operators are obliged to provide the social telephone tariff ?
From now on,each operator has to provide special rates to certain categories of beneficiaries (first paragraph of Article 74 of the Act of 13 June 2005 on electronic communications).
Operator means “Any person who has introduced a notification in accordance with article 9 » (Article 2, 11° of the Act). Article 9, §1 of the Act lays down that “the provision or resale on own behalf or for own use of electronic communications services or networks” are subject to previous notification.
In short, the list of the persons obliged to offer tariff reductions to the beneficiaries of social tariffs thus includes all operators of fixed and mobile telephony, including the “resellers” of fixed and mobile telephone services.
Who can benefit from the social telephone tariff ?
The granting conditions are laid down in the Act (Article 22 of the Annex) To benefit from a social telephone tariff a customer should first belong to one of the following categories:
- Persons of more than 65 years old ;
- Persons of more than 18 years old with a handicap of more than 66% ;
- Persons benefiting from the integration income (« beneficiaries of the subsistence minimum ») ;
- Hearing-impaired persons or persons who underwent laryngectomy ;
- Visually impaired soldiers due to war.
Additional conditions relating to cohabitation should also be checked for some categories :
- the persons of more than 65 years old must live alone or live with one or several persons who have turned 60 years old. They may also live with their children and/or grandchildren if the latter are fatherless or motherless or have been entrusted to the grandparents by legal decision;
- the persons with a handicap of at least 66 % and who have turned 18 years old must live alone or live with maximum two persons, either with parents or first- or second-degree relatives ;
- the persons of more than 65 years old, persons of more than 18 years old with a handicap of more than 66% and persons benefiting from the integration income living in a hotel, a convalescent home or under any other form of community life does not open any right to the benefit of the social telephone tariff unless the beneficiary has a subscription on his/her own behalf and for his/her exclusive use ;
- the parents or grandparents, holders of a telephony connection, may benefit from the social telephone tariff if their child or grandchild, who is living at their house, is hearing-impaired or underwent laryngectomy.
- the persons of more than 65 years old and the persons with a handicap of more than 66%, if the household’s annual gross income does not exceed the income limits fixed for the increased intervention in health care. Since their last indexation on 01.01.12 the annual taxable income not to exceed amounts to EUR 15986,16 for a beneficiary, increased by EUR 2959,47 per dependent.
- finally, a beneficiary may only have one single telephony connection at a social tariff and [that] there might only be one single beneficiary per household. Therefore, within the same household (the BIPT considers that the persons who are registered on the same “composition of the family” are part of the same household), it is forbidden to have more than one social telephone tariff, as people have to choose the (fixed or mobile) system and the operator that is the most convenient for them.
What do reductions consist of ?
The reductions granted are laid down in Article 38 to the Annex.
The reductions granted in the various hypotheses are presented in the following table:
|
Beneficiary
|
Type of system
|
Reductions on connection
|
Reductions each month
|
|
Operator for subscription
|
Operator for calls
|
FIXED line
|
Subscr.
|
Calls
|
Total
|
|
+ 65 years, disabled, hearing-impaired persons, laryngectomy, visually impaired soldiers
|
Operator A
|
Operator A
|
50% of the normal price
|
€ 8.4
|
€ 3.1
|
€ 11.5
|
|
- (no subscription fees)
|
Operator A
|
50% of the normal price
|
-
|
€ 3.1
|
€ 3.1
|
|
Operator A
|
Operator B
|
50% of the normal price
|
-
|
€ 11.5
(per B)
|
€ 11.5
|
|
“Beneficiaries of the subsistence minimum”
|
|
-
|
-
|
3,1 €
|
3,1 €
|
How can you benefit from the social telephone tariff ?
If you consider that you meet the conditions required to benefit from the social telephone tariff, you have to submit your request to the operator of your choice. The information will be sent to the BIPT. If it cannot automatically be established that you do meet the conditions, the BIPT will send you a letter asking you to deliver some documents to the BIPT.