Glo slashes rate on international calls

The international gateway subsidiary of the Second National Operator (SNO), Globacom Limited, the Glo Gateway, has announced a 70 per cent reduction in its international calls to the United Kingdom, United State of America and Canada.

A press statement from Glo Gateway, said subscribers instead of the N39 per minute earlier charged for calls to these destinations, Glo will now charge 20 kobo per second and N12 per minute for calls to all lines in the United States of America and Canada as well as calls to only landlines in the United Kingdom.

Head, Glo Gateway, Mr. Ibrahim Fadipe, disclosed in a statement in Lagos, last weekend, that the new call tariff is being offered in a new promotion called “Glo International Talk Extravaganza” promotion billed to end on January 31, 2009.

He explained that the new tariff is applicable to calls made from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. from Monday to Friday and calls made throughout the weekend. The offer, which is the most competitive in the industry, is open to new and existing customers on both the prepaid and postpaid platforms.

Fadipe said the heavy reduction in the tariff underlines Globacom’s resolve to continue to offer its subscribers affordable telecommunication services.

Glo Gateway which began operations five years ago has become a major player in the global telecommunication environment. With its international gateway switches, the company is able to offer hubbing services for the rest of the world.

Fadipe said that Glo Gateway currently aggregates international traffic for other countries and terminates them into their destinations.

It also carries international call traffic for several telecom operators in Nigeria.

“Because of the direct interconnectivity which we have established with many international carriers, we will be able to hub several million minutes of international traffic monthly to different destinations across the globe,” Fadipe stated, adding that “the direct connectivity also ensures high quality call termination, offering users of Glo Gateway service high quality international calls”.

Globacom is currently building 8,300-km long submarine cable to link Europe and the Africa sub-region and carry data and internet traffic between Nigeria and the rest of the world. The contract being executed by leading telecommunication vendors, Alcatel of France, will cater for long term bandwidth requirements for voice and data transmission in the region.

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