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Cape Town - MTN announced a new service that mimics the old school telephone system with a modern twist.
On Monday, the mobile operator launched a MTN Pay4Me service which allows customers to reverse charges for phone calls.
"Should the receiver accept the call, they will charged on behalf of the caller at 99 per minute on a per second billing regardless of their tariff plan", MTN said.
Under the old telephone exchange system, reverse charges were widely used when family called from foreign countries or from public call boxes.
The service differentiates from the traditional Please Call Me SMS service and should help MTN boost revenue in the South African market.
Under the cellphone plan, you have to register for the service which initially will only be available for calls on the MTN network.
You have to dial *121* followed by the number you wish to call.
However, ostensibly to prevent abuse of the system, MTN has made the service opt-in. Customers will have to use the USSD code *127#.
This will allow them to manage who is allowed to call on the service that launched on 24 October.
"This functionality saves time for the customer as the sponsor does not have to approve a Pay4Me request every time the frequent users of the service calls them", said Larry Annetts, chief marketing officer of MTN South Africa about service management.
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