More than 1,000 clients for PCNET voice services

A number of 1,063 clients used PCNET Voice cards during the first five days of the year in order to make international calls from fixed phones or from PCs, Mihai Batraneanu, PCNET Data Network general manager said.
“Most of the calls were directed to the US and Canada (32%), with Germany (21%), Italy and Great Britain (11% each) coming next, followed by France (10%), while Belgium, Spain and Sweden registered the lowest amount of calls (below 4%),” Batraneanu specified.
About half of the total clients preferred phone-to-phone calls, with the other half choosing the PC-to-phone option. In order to make a call via the PC, the user has to download an application from PCNET’s specialised site www.voice.ro first.
Three days through the year, approximately 430 of PCNET’s 740 voice service clients had downloaded the application for making PC to phone calls.
“Over the last two days we’ve had more clients choosing the phone-to-phone calls. The number of those to have called abroad using their phone is now about the same as the number of clients having opted for PC-to-phone calls,” Mihai Batraneanu yesterday said.
PCNET, one of the leading Internet and data service providers in Romania has been providing voice services via the Voice over Internet Protocol (IP) technology since January 1, 2003, which allows for significantly lower tariffs for international calls.
Such services are available either phone-to-phone or PC-to-phone. For instance, a phone-to-phone call to the US costs 12 cents/minute, while a PC-to-phone call to the same destination costs 9 cents a minute.
The PCNET Voice cards cost $5, $10 and $20, VAT not included.
Accessing the PCNET Voice system requires the users to dial a toll-free access number on their phone and then dial the code of the card purchased and the respective telephone number. Charging begins only upon response from the destination called.
Another operator to have launched a similar service, VoceNet, since early December 2002 is RomTelecom. This service allows users to make international calls using a prepaid card, which costs 200,000 ROL, with $6 in credit to the client.