Local phone companies yesterday began offering a variety of holiday rates for international calls, but with different companies charging different rates based on the length of the call and the time of the day, it's a difficult task to tell which company has the best prices.
For example, the best rate on a 10-minute call to the US comes from Chunghwa Telecom Co (
But that same 10-minute call placed weeknights on Chunghwa after 11pm will cost you nearly twice the price of rivals Eastern Broadband Telecom Co (
Confusing methods of calculating rates will be sure to leave consumers dumbfounded. Here are a few examples:
Eastern Broadband yesterday reduced its international direct dialing rate (IDD) for off-peak hours (11pm-8am weeknights and on weekends) from NT$0.5 to NT$0.48 per minute for calls made to China in the first five minutes and NT$4.5 from the sixth minute on.
The new calling rates -- effective through Jan 31 -- offers Eastern Broadband customers the chance to call Hong Kong at NT$4.5 per minute and the US and Canada at NT$3 per minute.
Sparq, which launched its reduced-rate plan in December, cut rates for calls until Jan 10. Offpeak calls to the US, Canada and China will cost NT$3 per minute, while calls to Hong Kong are NT$5 per minute.
In response to the pricing competition, Kuo Ming-chi (
She said that the company's phone lines go through "an international gateway" and, therefore, maintain better line quality while other economic IDD operators share public phone lines "that are usually crowded, easily interrupted or generate noise during phone conversations."
Meanwhile, Taiwan Fixed Network Co (
Reduced rates for Taiwan Fixed Network users also include NT$4.6 per minute for calls to China for the first six minutes and NT$0.49 for the seventh through the 16th minute.
Telecom giant Chunghwa has no special rates for the holidays but, instead, is offering users an extra nine minutes of free calling time on the weekend for all calls that last over two minutes.
The state-run company's off-peak international phone rates are therefore the cheapest for an 11-minute call to the US, with the first 2 minutes being charged at NT$5.6/per minute, and the remaining nine minutes free. Anything over 11 minutes is charged at NT$5.6 per minute.
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