The cost of making pre-paid mobile phone calls on the Eircell network will be cut in half from July 10th in a sign of growing price competition in the mobile market.

The new tariff structure announced yesterday by Eircell will reduce peak, off-peak and weekend rates by 50 per cent for Ready to Go customers.

Under the new tariffs mobile to mobile calls between Eircell customers are set at 40 pence per minute, for mobile to fixed line and other mobile operators networks it is 50 pence per minute and weekend rates are a blanket 10 pence per minute.

Esat Digifone introduced a similar package of tariff reductions for pre-paid calls in early June. Peak calls on the Digifone network now cost 50 pence per minute, off-peak 15 pence per minute and 10 pence on the weekends.