China Mobile slashes roaming fees in Britain

BEIJING - China Mobile, the nation's largest mobile telecommunications company, announced on Thursday it would cut its roaming service charges in Britain for the next two months, during which the Olympic Games will be held.

Subscribers who uses Vodafone's network will have to pay only 0.99 yuan ($0.16) per minute for phone calls made or received during July 1 and Aug 31. Subscribers usually pay 1.99 yuan to make a call to the Chinese mainland.

Costs for sending a text message to the Chinese mainland will be lowered by 62 percent to 0.15 yuan. Receiving messages will be free.

Charges for the GPRS Internet roaming service will be slashed by 90 percent to 1 yuan per megabyte.

China Mobile said the move was a result of tough negotiations between itself and overseas telecommunications operators.