Press Releases

From the 1st October 1999, Telecel will introduce local tariff pricing into the Portuguese cellular communications market. Until now local tariff pricing has only been available on the fixed line network in Portugal. The tariff is available for those on regular tariff plans under the name Local Calls Discount and for those using the Vitamina prepaid products the new tariff will be called Vitamina City.

Vitamina City is a new concept, which involves a new definition of local calls. A Customer nominates a city and then all calls within this area both to the fixed line network and Telecel’s network will be charged at the local rate. Consequently, Vitamina City Customers will benefit from a cost reduction of up to 50% compared with the average cost of all other pre-paid products.

Vitamina City is straightforward in that it will only have two different tariffs, whatever the time of the day, 30 PTE for local calls and 90 PTE for all other calls. There is a minimum monthly cost of 2,000 PTE. Vitamina City also provides the same service features as the standard Vitamina service, including cost control on the handset display, no monthly fee, low cost loading and roaming access.

With a Nokia 3210 handset Vitamina City will cost 29,900 PTE. This includes 5,000 PTE of airtime plus four more payments of 2,000 PTE deducted from the first 4 loadings. The Vitamina City Card version will cost 5,000 PTE, which includes 3,000 PTE of airtime.

For Customers on the regular tariff plan, Telecel’s new prices will mean savings of 50% on the Local Calls Discount, for those calls within the same regional code. This service has a monthly fee of 293 PTE.

Customers using either Vitamina City or Local Calls Discount will be informed if they are outside the tariff range via a message on their handset’s display.

António Coimbra, Telecel’s Vice-President for Customer Relations, commented: “The launch of local tariffs, represents a significant effort over the last six months, and once again Telecel is demonstrating its reputation as an innovative operator by offering both quality and competitive tariffs in the Portuguese cellular communications market.”

All the values include VAT.