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Cell C revamps international pricing

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 31 Aug 2012

Cell C has fired another round in the international calling sphere, reducing call rates to 177 countries - in addition to the 50 countries already on its 99c per minute call rate.

Cell C CEO Alan Knott-Craig says this follows extensive negotiations for better termination rates with the operator's international partners. He notes that termination rates - rates charged by other operators to carry calls on their networks - remain the highest input cost when determining call rates, both locally and abroad.

Savings negotiated with international partners, says Knott-Craig, will be passed on to consumers, starting from tomorrow. In addition to the reduced tariffs, Cell C says it has simplified its price plan to put consumers in the know as to how rates work when making overseas calls.

Rate zones

Cell C says countries have been grouped into five different zones, according to the new call rates, which will be available to prepaid, hybrid and postpaid customers as default rates from 1 September. Calls will be billed on a per-second basis and the new rates will be applicable to fixed-line and mobile numbers in the respective countries.

Zone 1 includes 50 countries at a call rate of 99c per minute. Calling destinations in Zone 1 include Angola, Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, India, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the UK and US.

At R1.99 per minute, Zone 2 includes 53 countries - including Argentina, Botswana, Israel, Japan, Mozambique, Namibia, Saudi Arabia, Swaziland, Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates.

Zone 3, at R2.99 per minute, covers 66 countries including Cameroon, Denmark, Ethiopia, Ghana, Lebanon, Lesotho, Mexico, Switzerland and Qatar.

The remaining 58 countries will be added to Zone 4 and Zone 5, at R3.99 and R8.99 per minute, respectively. Zone 4 includes countries such as Albania, Bulgaria, Chile, Liberia, Sudan and Zimbabwe. Zone 5 includes Cuba, Djibouti, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Tunisia.

Knott-Craig says the operator will continue to negotiate better rates with international partners. “Where we are able to further reduce rates, we will make amendments.”

All international calls are pure circuit-switched (non-VOIP) calls.

For a full list of countries per zone, click here.

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