CyTA to slash cost of international calls

THE PRICE of telephone calls to the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany and Greece will fall from August 11, CyTA announced yesterday.

In a statement, the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority said prices would fall by up to 59 per cent for the US, up to 31 per cent to the UK and Germany, eight per cent to Russia and up to five per cent for Greece.

CyTA said that the reductions applied for calls made from mobile, fixed and public telephones, and at both peak and off-peak times.

Fixed line calls to the US, which currently cost £0,975 per minute at peak time and £0,709 off-peak, will cost £0,40 and £0,30 per minute respectively after August 11.

Calls made to the US from mobile phones will fall to £0,46 and £0,36 compared to the current £1,034 and £0,751 per minute.

Reduced rates will not apply to calls made via operator services or through Russia’s private telephone networks, the CyTA statement noted.

The lower rates come as a nod to anticipated competition in CyTA’s preparation for EU deregulation.

The semi-government organisation currently has a monopoly on the island’s telecommunications market.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.