THE international phone call price war has made Hong Kong one of the cheapest places in the world from which to dial abroad, a Sunday Morning Post survey has found.
Hong Kong now offers more attractive economy calling charges to the United States and Canada than are available phoning the other way using AT&T or MCI.
It is also now cheaper to ring Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Britain, Guangdong and north China from Hong Kong than it is to call the SAR from those countries.
The price advantage over other countries is even greater if you take midnight promotions into account, with operators offering calls for as little as $0.45 a minute to the US and Canada between 1am and 7am.
A spokesman at the Office of the Telecommunications Authority said charges had been driven down to cost level with the implementation of international simple resale (ISR).
ISR started this year allowing telecom rivals to rent bulk capacity from Hongkong Telecom and resell it.