South Africa - cheaper calls

Cheap international calls for mobiles

Altech and ECN Telecoms are offering cheap rates for mobile-to-mobile international calls. The two telecoms companies have combined efforts to launch a service where customers can dial an international number, via ECN's network, and be charged less than R1.25 per minute.

ECN's chief commercial officer, Andy Openshaw, explains that the company would carry the cost of the calls. ECN would only charge customers international rates which, Openshaw says, are “considerably cheaper” than standard Telkom rates. “Essentially, the customer will get charged international rates that are less than R1.25 per minute and we will also charge them per second,” he adds.

Openshaw also says that the service is already online and will be formally launched by Altech in a week's time. He says that customers will have to dial a specific number that will lead to an auto-prompt to dial the international number that they want to contact. ECN will then dial that number and connect the two.

Altech's Brogan Clark could not comment on the new product, stating that it is yet to be formally launched by the company. Yet he is confident that it is ready for consumers to test. Openshaw says that the service was tested for a few months before it went online this month. He says that Altech will be offering this service to all mobile users across all networks.