Call US, Canada for Rs 1.75/minute

NEW DELHI: International calls to the US and Canada would now cost just Rs 1.75 per minute from BSNL and MTNL phones as against Rs 7.20 a minute at present.
    
BSNL has launched a calling card - CallNow - which allows BSNL and MTNL's landline subscribers to make much cheaper ISD calls to the US and Canada.
    
While for some other destinations like France, Russia, the UK and South East Asia, the rates would vary from Rs 3.25 to Rs four a minute, depending on the denomination value of CallNow cards, Kuldeep Goyal, CMD of BSNL said.
    
"Higher the denomination, cheaper the call charges," he said, adding that CallNow card also allows BSNL to BSNL/MTNL and vice versa calls to Re one per minute and to other operators at a maximum of Rs two per minute.
    
BSNL has also tied up with Indiatimes for launching Free Messaging Service (FMS) under which, instead of the sender, the receiver of SMS would be charged.
    
The service would help subscribers who have exhausted their air time (cash balance) to send SMS in an emergency situation, but with prior permission of receiver.