Sprint Corp believes it has found a loophole in Peking’s ban on foreign operation of telephone services in China: the catch is the pre-paid long-distance calling cards it hopes to sell to Chinese consumers can only be distributed in the US; overseas Chinese eager to hear from their relatives back home can buy the cards […]
Sprint Corp believes it has found a loophole in Peking’s ban on foreign operation of telephone services in China: the catch is the pre-paid long-distance calling cards it hopes to sell to Chinese consumers can only be distributed in the US; overseas Chinese eager to hear from their relatives back home can buy the cards in the US and send them by mail to China; Sprint China hopes to persuade the Ministry of Posts & Telecommunications to co-operate in the issuance of calling cards in China; Chinese callers simply dial the five-digit number corresponding to their preferred carrier, which then completes their call and bills the US party; the ministry is so pleased with its US rivals’ service that it cancelled its collect-call service to the US on June 1 but China continues to resist the pleas of overseas phone companies to allow them to invest in its fledgling telephone system.
