Cable & Wireless has slashed international phone rates for the second time in six months.

From today overseas Cable & Wireless rates will fall by an average of six percent. And this follows their move in January to cut ten cents a minute off its rates to all destinations worldwide.

And the company has extended the gauntlet to other overseas providers by claiming its rates for calls to the UK, US and Canada during the evenings and on weekends are the Island's "lowest''.

By slicing its pricing C&W is trying to shake off the perception that it is expensive -- and it says the new rates will benefit both business and residential customers. Spokesman John Instone said the company had been able to make both sets of rate reductions as a result of the Government's order for BTC to decrease the interconnect fee it charged overseas carriers.

"The first such decrease was in January,'' he said. "We are passing on the benefit to our customers early, in anticipation of further reductions in the BTC interconnect charge in July.

"Since competition started in international telecommunications in Bermuda a perception has been created that there is a vast disparity in the rates charged by the two competing companies.

"The perception was that Cable & Wireless was good, but expensive. While our service is as good as ever, we hope the myth that our IDD rates are more expensive has been finally put to rest.'' He said C&W's surveys had shown that the most popular calling times to the US, the UK or Canada were during the evenings and at weekends for which the company's rates were "now the lowest available locally''.

"For the business customer, our new rates couples with our existing business volume discounts and quality of service make Cable & Wireless the better value by far.'' John Instone: C&W rates will fall by an average of six percent.