Christmas and New Years Calling Bonanza

Well the Christmas calling rush has just passed and I saw record numbers going over our switch both on the 24th and the 25th. Oddly for my domestic products Christmas Day was the largest calling day and for my international origination products Christmas Eve was the bigger calling day. I guess in Europe Christmas Eve is the more festive day and here in the US and Canada Christmas Day seems to take the prize. Either way I was very please with the traffic and I hope my customers were pleased with the quality of their calls as well.

The lull has begun with long distance calling now reaching all time lows but that will pick right back up again in another day or so with all of the New Years Eve and Day wishes being spread. Also with Ramadan coming to an end it should be a good amount of traffic coming my way.

January is usually a good month as well with February slowing down a lot!

MCI and Microsoft Getting Ready to Intro Softphone

It looks as if the big power house Microsoft is about to unleash their entry into the VOIP game with a partnership with MCI. The new softphone will be meant to compliment their IM client and follows suit with similar undertakings by Yahoo and AOL.

To see the article go to http://digital-lifestyles.info/display_page.asp?section=cm&id=2857

Great Article About Phone Cards and MLB

An Interesting article I found on AOL from the New York Times which I thought would be a good read for those in the Prepaid Phone Card Business:

"For millions of foreign visitors and immigrants in New York, it has long been a lifeline to home: the prepaid phone card, costing as little as $2 at the corner bodega, good for bargain-rate international calls that are charged by the minute.

Now, in a case involving bodega owners, Major League Baseball and some of its most celebrated Hispanic players, the phone cards are the focus of charges including false advertising, overcharging and fraud.

Yesterday, at a sidewalk news conference in front of Major League Baseball's Park Avenue headquarters, the Bodega Association of the United States, a trade group, described what it called a huge swindle aimed at low-income Spanish-speaking people. The cards, which bear the photographs of baseball stars like the Mets pitcher Pedro Martínez, either do not work at all or provide far less calling time than advertised, the bodega owners say.

"The important thing for bodegas is to maintain the trust of people in our community," said Jose Fernandez, president of the association, which says it represents 7,000 bodega owners in the city and suburbs. He said the bodega owners, many of them immigrants with limited English skills, are being duped into buying the faulty cards, just as their customers are.

Besides Martínez, Mets general manager Omar Minaya; Baltimore Orioles shortstop Miguel Tejada; Los Angeles Angels outfielder Vladimir Guerrero; Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz; and Oakland Athletics pitcher Octavio Dotel have appeared on the cards, all in uniform, and typically captured in action on the ball field, as they might appear on a box of Wheaties.

Carmine Tiso, a spokesman for Major League Baseball, said it had not known that photos of the players, or of Minaya, had been used to promote phone cards until this week. He said the league had not approved the use of their images, which is required because league uniforms appear in the pictures. He also said the league had begun its own investigation that could lead to disciplinary action against the players.

Norman Siegel, a lawyer for the bodega owners, said an investigation into who was responsible for making and distributing the cards had not been completed. He said that tracing the production, distribution and sales of the cards might be difficult.
Spanish-speaking customers have encountered similar swindles for years, the bodega owners said, but the complaints have multiplied in recent months as the faulty phone cards with the ballplayers' pictures have begun circulating under the brand name Grandes Ligas, or big leagues.

"These ballplayers are the heroes of our community," said Anthony Miranda, chairman of the National Latino Officers Association of America, a police group, who joined the news conference.
Richard Lipsky, a spokesman for the bodega owners' group, said it was considering a lawsuit against the phone card manufacturers and distributors, perhaps also naming Major League Baseball, Mr. Minaya and the players whose photographs are on the cards as defendants. The threat of a lawsuit was reported on Monday by The New York Post.

But Mr. Siegel said yesterday that the lawsuit had been put off until the phone card problem was explored further, and in the hope that Major League Baseball would join forces with the bodega owners, providing public and financial support for the suit.
Mr. Tiso, of Major League Baseball, declined to say whether the league would aid the bodega owners. "We would prefer to have a discussion with them directly, not through the media," he said.

Mr. Siegel said his group would also urge the state attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department to investigate.
Christine Pritchard, a spokeswoman for Mr. Spitzer, said his office would review the complaint. She said customers who thought they had been bilked by faulty phone cards should contact Mr. Spitzer's office to help it build a legal case."

Copyright © 2005 The New York Times Company written by THOMAS J. LUECK

Phone Cards for your Cell Phone!

I don't think most people realize this but using a phone card from your cell phone is possible and will save you lots of money vs making a direct dialed long distance call. International Phone Cards work from any phone, even your cell phone. I can't count the ammount of times my family members believed they had to be using their home phone to make their long distance calls. A phone is a phone, even your cell phone!

The real trick is wait until your free nights and weekends kick in (so you don't burn your minutes), grab your favorite phone card and call away!

Prediction for 2006 - Prepaid Mobile Consolidates!

My prediction for the upcoming year is that this over crowded Prepaid MVNO market will see many players drop out of the game due to decreased profit margins.

Just like prepaid phone cards, the prepaid mobile market seems to be following courese, just at a more rapid rate. Each month we see two or three new MVNOs entering the game and each trying to top the other with their offer. By the end of next year margins will have become so low that most smaller players will have to leave the market, either due to bankruptcy, buyout or just a general pull out.

This market seems to be moving at such an accelerated pace that I see the evelotion of this market happening at a much more exelerated pace than it did with phone cards. As always only the strong (finiancialy) will survive.

For customers they can look forward to one thing for sure in 2006... great rates and deals on prepaid phones and rates as all of these players compete for your business!

Prepaid Softphones?

Just a little question... I have noticed a lot of buzz lately about internet softphones like Skype, Glophone, Dialpad etc... Is this just a fad or are these products really marketable as stand alone prepaid products?

I know they have a use for the online community kind of things like Google, Yahoo and Ebay who just want to be able to add voice commnunication to their text chat.