Asiawide phone cards

Asiawide phone cards

TOKYO (AFP): Major telecommunications companies in seven Asian economies have started developing common telephone cards for calls among them, the Sankei Shimbun said yesterday.

An informal committee of common carriers in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and South Korea aim to realize the world's first regional telephone cards by the end of next March, the daily said.

The committee, set up under the initiative of Japan's Kokusai Denshin Denwa (KDD), will apply to authorities in each nation for the approval of the international cards based on the current format of KDD's pre-paid cards, it said.

There are few technical problems, but different charge systems need to be standardized, it said. KDD refused to comment on the newspaper report.