Panama cellcos prepare for competition with price drops
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BNamericas is reporting that Panama's two mobile operators Cable & Wireless (C&W) and Movistar have reduced their pre-paid calling rates in anticipation of the launch of two new players, Digicel and Claro. Citing local press the report states that C&W has extended the expiry period for all of its pre-paid cards to one year, alongside new promotions including per-second billing and SMS services allowing subscribers with no credit to send a message to a contact to request a call. Digicel and Claro, the latter a subsidiary of Mexican telecoms group America Movil, were awarded 20-year concessions to offer wireless services using 30MHz in the 1900MHz frequency band, with each operator paying USD86 million for the licence.
