Phone calls out of Costa Rica to such frequent long-distance destinations as Mexico, Canada and the United States have become as much as 15 percent cheaper, the daily La Nación reported.

The price to call the United States, for example, went from 27 cents to 23 cents a minute after the Costa Rican Electricity Institute's (ICE) price slash last month.

Jorge Sánchez, a manager at ICE, the country's phone service provider, told La Nación part of the price drop is due to the growing use of online phoning through programs such as Skype.

Sánchez said ICE will continue to cut international calling costs and is looking into involving Internet phoning systems to remain competitive.