TELECOMMUNICATIONS : PREPAID CARDS HARM PUBLIC PHONE BOOTHS, SAYS ARCEP.

The French telecoms regulatory authority (Arcep) recently launched a public consultation on prepaid phone cards which allow the user to make international calls at low cost, on the grounds that they reduce the profits of public phone booths. According to Arcep, the prepaid card market had a turnover at the end of 2005 of 240 million, the equivalent of 28 million cards sold every year.

The number of prepaid phone cards consisting of both national and international communication time at...