The new rates are:

. $1,250 per month for business line, up 25 per cent from $1,000.

. $500 per month for residential standard plan rate, up 25 per cent from $400.

. $340 per month for residential lower-user plan rate, up 79 per cent from $190.

. $1 per minute for inter-parish household calls on weekends, up 47 per cent per cent from $0.68.

. 60 cents per minute for full-rate intra parish calls, up 15.4 per cent from $42 cents.

. 46 cents per minute for week-end intra-parish calls, up 18 per cent from 39 cents.

. $54 per month for business call waiting rental, up 20 per cent per cent from $45.

. $30 per month for residential call waiting rental, up 25 per cent from $25.

. $200 per month for private or ex-directory listing, up 14 per cent from $175.

. $15 per call for national directory inquiry from fixed lines, up 50 per cent per cent from $10.

. $150 per call for telex to all countries.

However, the full and off-peak inter-parish call rate will remain for those businesses and residential customers on C&W's standard package, as well as domestic call rates for residential customers on the lower-user package arrangement.

At the same time, C&W will cut by 5 cents to $15.75 per minute, the rate for international direct calls from fixed lines. Other reductions apply to operator-assisted international calls to all destinations.

Cable and Wireless whose rates are subject to price control, had sought from the regulators increases of up to 47 per cent on a range of its land-line services, its application having been made against the background of the reduction in the revenue it earns from overseas companies that terminate calls into its network.

The Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) to which C&W applied for the rate increases said on Tuesday that it was examining the proposal to see to what extent the level of increases being sought was legitimate.

The increases granted were generally below the level sought by the telecoms company.

"The OUR's task is really to determine that C&WJ has applied the price cap formula correctly and it is not an attempt at a general price review," said J Paul Morgan, the director-general of the watchdog and utilities regulatory agency. "The increase in rates comes as a result of a revised cap plan issued by the OUR on January 16, 2004 and the company's continuing efforts to rebalance its rates," said C&W yesterday.

The OUR manages telephone rates using a complex system that takes into account international call rates, land-line fixed charges and call rates, as well as cellular rates.

For sometime now, the OUR has placed a cap on the level of increase that C&W can impose on its land- line customers, even though the telephone firm has consistently and strongly argued that the ceiling has forced it to provide these services below costs.