Hongkong Telecom has proposed that international telephone companies change the method of charging each other for handling long distance calls as a way of diffusing widely-opposed moves by the United States to force rates lower.
International phone companies charge each other according to a series of bilateral agreements which set so-called accounting rates between them. The accounting rate is different for every country.
Telecom has proposed abandoning these bilateral agreements in favour of a single termination fee which applies no matter where a call began.
'I can't see any alternative,' Hongkong Telecom International director Keith Harrison told a recent meeting of the International Telecommunications Union in Geneva.
The international carrier community has been under pressure to address the issue of payments since the US Federal Communications Commission announced at the end of last year it planned to slash the amount it pays out through the accounting rate system.
The widespread use of callback services around the world has distorted established traffic flows, causing concern in Washington that it pays out for more than it gets in.