New T & T has escalated the price war for international telephone calls by offering cable television subscribers discounts on its 007 call-back service. Paid-up Wharf Cable viewers will receive a 5 per cent discount on international telephone calls from sister company New T & T in a promotion that attempts to capitalise on cable TV's audience of more than 100,000. New T & T has boosted its international switching capacity with the number of subscribers using its call-back service in excess of 50,000, company president Leslie Harris said. The discounting programme was New T & T's first response to Hongkong Telecom's recently approved plan to offer discount services for high-volume users. Mr Harris condemned that decision. He said the Office of Telecommunications Authority (OFTA) had backtracked on promises to maintain a single call structure for all classes of telephone users. If Hongkong Telecom was allowed to engage in predatory pricing tactics, then other fixed-network telephone providers should be freed from paying the 38.5 cents per minute access deficit charge as compensation to the former monopoly for servicing more remote areas, he said. New T & T planned to offer integrated services digital network (ISDN) services within six months. The international data transmission market has been opened to the new networks due to an OFTA decision allowing capacity on international leased lines to be re-sold for data transmission.
