Kazakhstan moves to per-second billing for international phone calls

"This measure made it possible for Kazakhstan to fully move to the per-second billing for all consumers of communications services in all directions. The expected saving of costs for subscribers will be 10-17 percent on average," the ministry said. At the initiative of Kazakh Ministry of Transport and Communications, the size of billing unit for calls from urban rural phones to long-distance numbers and numbers of mobile operator subscribers was dropped from 10 seconds to one second from July 1, 2012. The billing unit for calls from urban and mobile phones to the network of operators both local and abroad was decreased from 30 seconds to 10 seconds, Kazinform refers to trend.az. The first decrease of billing units was initiated by the country's Communications and Information Ministry in 2011. The billing unit for calls within the network and to the network of other operators for subscribers of mobile communication was determined to be one second. The connection fee when calling from a cell phone to other operators was also lifted.