ACC Long Distance UK Ltd, part of Rochester, New York-based ACC Corp, has launched a national roll-out telecommunications programme in the UK. The company says it will offer savings of up to 30% on call costs, compared to British Telecommunications Plc and Mercury Communications Ltd, on long-distance national and international calls. The service, ACCess 1602, is aimed at business and residential users and, like Mercury services, uses indirect access, whereby customers are connected to ACC’s public exchange system through their existing British Telecom lines. The company says it can offer the savings, even though it has to connect through British Telecom lines, because its conveyance rates from British Telecom for volume traffic are significantly below retail rates. ACC says it is not going after the market for local calls and points out that, although it can carry these, cost savings will only be found in national-long-distance and international calls. According to the company, the roll-out programme that started in London, will cover the entire UK, including Northern Ireland, in stages over the next three months.
