Mike Mutuha is the master of cheap talk. He has two mobile phones, both holding two sim cards. By subscribing to each of Kenya’s four mobile providers, Mutuha ensured he never had to pay the exorbitant off-network rates that have long frustrated consumers here.

But his thrift may now be redundant.

In recent weeks a brutal price war has broken out between the mobile operators, slashing the cost of calls between networks by at least 50%, and in some cases 75%. The cuts have come so fast and are so deep that they caused Kenya’s August inflation rate to drop, along with the jaws of some mobile executives complaining that they are now losing money.

To read this report in The Guardian in full, see:
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/07/kenya-mobile-operator-price-war