LIME slashed the cost of mobile phone calls yesterday from $8 a minute to $2.99, two-thirds less than the price charged by its arch-rival Digicel.

For the same low rate, callers can also phone landlines in America, Britain and Canada, where most of the Jamaican diaspora reside.

The company hopes the “game-changing” Talk EZ plan will double its market share from 18 per cent to 36 per cent within three years. It currently has 400,000 pre-paid customers and 50,000 subscribers.

The new rates, which become effective today, are also expected to drive up the amount of time each customer spends on the phone, and encourage more people to take out contracts, where the rate is $1.99 per minute.

“The thing that counts in an economy like ours is price, price, price,” said Garry Sinclair, the managing director for Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. “Communication is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity.”

LIME has had lower rates for some time, he said. “But people just weren’t noticing. Now we’ve created enough daylight between us for them to notice.”

Customers wishing to sign up for the plan can do so by dialling *123*1# and pressing the send button.

Sinclair denied that the plan was the final desperate gamble by the troubled phone company. “It’s not a last-ditch effort, but it is not a small thing, either,” he said. “We’ve got a business here that we’ve got to turn around.”

Cable & Wireless Jamaica, as LIME is formally known, has lost money for five years straight and reported a $20-billion loss in the year to March, largely due to the $16-billion write-down of its fixed assets.

The Talk EZ launch is to be promoted this morning by “live advertising”, with LIME staff waving giant mobile phones at motorists waiting for red lights to change at intersections across the island. “We’re going to stop traffic,” said Sinclair.

The company is also offering Alcatel phones today only for just $999, 50 per cent off the regular retail price, with a $999 credit, in effect making the handsets free.

The 63 per cent rate cut was made possible when the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) cut the mobile termination rate (the amount LIME has to pay Digicel when one of its customers calls a number on its rival’s network) from $9 per minute to $5.

Reducing the termination rate has been a major demand of LIME in its fight to create a level regulatory playing field.

Because the termination rate made being on the same network as family, friends and colleagues cheaper, it acted as a deterrent to people switching from the dominant operator.

But with Talk EZ, it will cost less to call a Digicel number from a LIME phone, at $6.99, than from a Digicel phone, at $8.99.

Yesterday, Digicel responded to LIME’s announcement by pointing to its record of innovation, the two rate reductions it has made so far this year, and the islandwide 4G network it is currently rolling out.

Digicel’s latest rate cut, in March, may have been a pre-emptive strike, anticipating the OUR move, said Sinclair.

However, he refused to speculate on when Digicel might respond to LIME’s aggressive pricing. “How long it’s going to take them to ditch that ($8.99 price) is anybody’s guess.”

Digicel has other tools, such as awarding extra minutes or double bubble top-ups, which it can use to counter LIME’s new advantage, he said.

But until the dominant phone company responds, LIME is going to grab as many customers as possible, he said. “This promotion is meant to gain a lot of market share as quickly as we can,” said Sinclair.