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The Record - Hackensack, New Jersey

By Martha McKay, The Record, Hackensack, N.J.

May 17--Cablevision is rolling out an international phone service that gives subscribers 500 minutes of calls anywhere in the world for $20 a month.

The company's new plan, which will be introduced today, is called Optimum Voice World Call. It's available to Cablevision phone and high-speed Internet customers. The monthly charge is in addition to a basic phone service charge of $35 a month for unlimited domestic calls.

Customers can purchase additional blocks of 500 minutes for $20, and the service has no hidden fees or per-minute charges, the company said.

"Instead of paying a monthly international plan fee plus costly per-minute rates ranging from 10 cents to more than a dollar, Optimum Voice customers can now add to all of our current benefits the freedom to call anywhere in the world for one low monthly fee," Patricia Gottesman, Cablevision's executive vice president of product management and marketing, said in a statement.

Cablevision has been successful signing up customers for its phone service. So far, the company, which operates cable systems in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, has signed up 900,000 phone customers and poses a competitive threat to the dominant local phone provider, Verizon.

The service also competes with other Internet-based phone services such as Holmdel-based Vonage, which also sends calls over a broadband connection. Vonage offers free calls to Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and Ireland with the purchase of a $25-per-month unlimited package.

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