Mobile phone operator areeba yesterday announced its revised international call rates, bringing them lower than Cytamobile-Vodafone’s rates with differences of nearly four cents per minute for some countries.
The revised flat rates for calls abroad are per second, with no minimum charge, a company press release said. Rates vary slightly for areeba pay monthly and areeba pay as you talk users, with the latter marginally more expensive.
Speaking to the Cyprus Mail yesterday, an areeba spokesman said the reasoning behind the rate reduction was based on the company’s philosophy.
“Areeba’s goal is give people, consumers, the opportunity to use their mobile phones more and to communicate more easily and effectively.”
He insisted the company had not reduced its rates to prise away customers from Cytamobile-Vodafone. “The rates we had before were similar to Cytamobile but that was only until we had fixed our own rates. These are areeba’s rates. Our philosophy is to make mobile telephony easy to use and to give people more and new telephone communication opportunities both for calls made to Cyprus and abroad,” he added.
Rates for areeba pay monthly users calling Greece now stand at five cents per minute to a landline and 14 cents to a mobile, compared to 6.96 cents and 17.94 cents for peak-time Cytamobile users. Callers phoning UK landlines from areeba pay monthly phones are charged five cents per minute and 13 cents per minute to mobiles, compared to Cytamobile’s 6.96 cents per minute and 16.92 cents per minute respectively. Calls from areeba phones to the USA are also cheaper by nearly two cents per minute for both landlines and mobiles, and calls to China and Sri Lanka are nearly four cents cheaper.
Areeba also points to other differences with Cytamobile. The latter has peak and off-peak rates, whereas areeba has flat rates for all calls. The new mobile company also does not have a minimum charge, which again makes areeba cheaper because although calls for both companies are charged per second, Cytamobile charges a minimum charge of two cents for monthly subscribers and a 20-second call charge, depending on the country of destination, for soeasy users.
The company spokesman said areeba’s popularity had exceeded expectations. “Every day we have more users than the corresponding day the previous week. Areeba is proving extremely successful among consumers and has been received with great acceptance; perhaps a lot more than expected,” he said.
A fuller listing of all international rates is published on both Cytamobile-Vodafone and areeba’s websites on www.cyta.com.cy and www.areeba.com.cy.
