Uruguay got rid of the concept of "national" long distance

It may have been well-publicized there, but I noticed a mention of it online last night. I was incredulous and of course had to verify... I hadn't noticed it while I was there because I was using mostly cellphones, never had occasion to buy one of the chip cards the payphones accept.

The telephone bills I used to get for calls between home and a couple of numbers in Salinas seriously added up and were not. When we lived in the countryside outside Pando we had a Montevideo (02) number. To call Salinas (037) about 10km away - long distance.

It added up to real money.

Now, it's not a huge thing to celebrate... local calls are still timed there. You pay per minute whether you're calling next door or what used to be long distance. There's some allowance each month that's part of the basic phone charge but when you go beyond that it starts to add up.