Starting from this month fixed line and mobile phone operators will charge their individual clients with 20 tetri (about USD 0.12) and organizations with 50 tetri (about USD 0.3) monthly as a tariff to be paid to the planned emergency call center run by the Ministry of Interior.

A single emergency phone number, 112, will be launched this spring – no exact date of launch has yet been set, but according to the government’s December 27, 2011 decree fixed line and mobile phone operators will be charged monthly starting from January. Monthly tariff will apply no matter whether a phone subscriber makes an emergency call or not.

In case of mobile phone subscribers, the tariff will not apply to those who will use mobile phone services worth of no more than GEL 5 monthly. 

Fixed line phone subscribers, which are registered by the government as socially vulnerable families, are exempted from the tariff.

Number of mobile phone users grew to 3.98 million by end of 2010, according to last year’s annual report by the Georgian National Communications Commission (GNCC). Number of mobile phone subscribers is defined by number of active SIM cards. Users of fixed phone line, both hard-wired and wireless, increased to 1.1 million by the end of 2010, according to the same report.