Head Offices: Telecommunications Street
P.O.Box 24929, CY-1396 Nicosia, Cyprus
Telephone: +357 2 701520, Ôelefax: +357 2 701185
e-mail: pr@cyta.cytanet.com.cy

 
Press Release: 101/2000
Drastic reductions to international telephone,
connection and subscription charges, for
fixed and mobile telephony and the ISDN service
As from August 1st, 2000

As from Tuesday, August 1st, 2000, the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority will introduce drastic reductions to international telephone charges (analogue, mobile and ISDN), the CYTAGSM monthly subscription charge and the ISDN connection and monthly subscription charges.  The decision to make these reductions was taken by CYTA in order to assist the State in adopting its proposal regarding the rebalancing of its tariffs.  It will also support efforts towards a greater penetration of the ISDN service, while improving the Authority’s competitiveness in international telephony.

Specifically, the CYTAGSM service’s monthly subscription charge is reduced from £10 to £8.

Moreover, as regards the basic rate access ISDN service the connection charge is down from £50 to £40 and the monthly subscription charge is reduced from £12 to £10.  In addition, until the approval of CYTA’s proposal regarding the rebalancing of its tariffs, we are giving a further 20% discount on the above charge, so the monthly subscription charge will temporarily be £8.

The ISDN service enables the transmission of voice, data and images via a single network, by a single telephone line to the customer’s premises.  Thereby, a broad range of applications can be carried out, such as high speed archive transfer, video telephony/conferencing, fast internet access etc.

The reductions to international fixed telephony charges are as much as 78%.  Examples are those for calls to the most popular countries for outgoing telephone traffic, such as Greece (10%), the United Kingdom (37%), the USA (53%), Russia (25%) and the Philippines (47%).

The table below presents the previous and the new charges per minute for fixed telephony calls to some of the most popular countries regarding outgoing telephone traffic, at both peak and off-peak times (off-peak charges are applicable every day between 22.00 and 08.00 and all day Sunday).
 

COUNTRIES C H A R G E S  (per minute)
Peak Off-peak
From
to
From
to
GREECE
20c
18c
19c
16c
UNITED KINGDOM
30c
19c
25c
16c
USA
40c
19c
30c
16c
GERMANY
30c
27c
25c
22c
ITALY
30c
27c
25c
22c
RUSSIA
40c
30c
30c
24c
UKRAINE
40c
30c
30c
24c
PHILIPPINES
75c
40c
60c
30c

The charges for international calls from public cardphones and coin-operated phones will also be reduced accordingly.  The table of new charges will gradually be placed in public payphones.

Significant reductions in the charges for international calls using the CYTAGSM, SYMPHONY and NMT-900 mobile telephony services will also be introduced.

Specifically, the new international fixed telephony charges (per minute), increased by six cents or less, are applied for the CYTAGSM and NMT-900 services, while for the SYMPHONY prepaid service, the international charges are increased by 20 cents plus a percentage of VAT.

For example, the peak charges for calls using the CYTAGSM and NMT-900 services to Australia and Canada are reduced from 56 to 33 cents per minute, the USA from 46 to 25 cents and the UK from 36 to 25 cents.  The respective off-peak charges are: Australia and Canada from 46 now 28 cents, the USA from 33,2 now 22 cents and the UK from 30,3 now 22 cents.

Tables of all countries in alphabetical order for which the new charges apply are also attached.
 

Public Relations Department
27 July 2000

TABLE OF NEW FIXED TELEPHONY CHARGES

TABLE OF NEW CYTAGSM & NMT-900 CHARGES

TABLE OF NEW SYMPHONY CHARGES

Press Releases
Archive 2000