Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Howard Jonas "Jew of the Day"

No this is not some anti Semitic post, there is an interesting article out there where Howard Jonas is the called "Jew of the Day"

http://www.jewoftheday.com/categories/culture/Jonas%20Howard.htm

The article basically touts his work and support of the Jewish community and gives you a feel for just how Jewish IDT is as a company, talking about the Kosher cafeteria, the synagogue on site and it's orthodox employee base.

Not really news but the name of the site caught my attention and the background it gives you on Jonas is insightful and on point.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Skype Sues PennyTalk Calling Card for Patent infringement

In one of the most ridiculous things I have seen recently, eBay, the parent company of Skype, has sued IDT over a claimed patent infringement on the PennyTalk calling card. While no details of the lawsuit were released other than PennyTalk is using a 2000 patent of theirs for a "long distance telephone communications system."

Now if I am correct PennyTalk is just a prepaid calling card, which is the most basic form of telecommunications service... does Skype have a patent on calling cards?

This just smells of abuse of our legal system and is no doubt a tit fo tat retaliatory lawsuit to get revenge on IDT for suing Skype for a VOIP patent infringement issue. While I don't know much about the IDT lawsuit against Skype, I do know that if anyone can claim ownership of VOIP patents, it is IDTs Net2Phone group who was one of the founding fathers of the VOIP business but I can guarantee you that Skype claiming it has patents in the calling card market is just plain ridiculous!

To read the brief announcement click here

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Tarjeta Talk Commercial

Commercial for the Talk phone card from PT1.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Oblio Goes Back to SmartTalk for Calling Card Service

Oblio has come full circle, announcing that they will now be using Smartalk again for all of it's prepaid phone cards. Oblio had been with Smartalk for most of the first half of this decade but then left for Sprint, with whom they partnered to be able to expand their prepaid mobile business. While it is not clear if Sprint shut them down or that Oblio was just unhappy with the service, Smartalk will now be the provider of choice going forward.

If hindsight is 20/20 then they are probably thinking they should not have left for Sprint in the first place.

It looks as if Oblio and it's parent company Titan Global Holdings are at least trying to turn around the business and bring it back on course but unfortunately there has been too much damage to consumer confidence and distributor relationships to be able to solve the problems just by switching carriers... might be too little too late!

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Speedypin.com Sold to NewWest Capital Partners

Speedypin LLC, one of the oldest phone card websites online (founded in 1997), announced that they have sold off the assets of their business to Denver Colorado based NewWest Capital Partners. The financials of the deal have not been disclosed nor is it clear if the existing management of speedypin.com will remain on with the company.

Speedy pin is also known as 1st USA.com Phonecards, Inc

speedypin.com & New West

The full press release can be seen here

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Titan Global Announces that Counterfeit Cards are in the Market

In what has seemingly been a long couple of months for Oblio distributors, Titan Global Holdings, in what appears to be a bold PR move, announced yesterday that there are a slew of counterfeit Oblio branded cards in the market and will be replacing any unused cards for all distributors or retailers with such cards. They also claim that they are pursuing legal action against the alleged counterfeiters in Texas courts. In a press release on the Center Dialy Times, they claim that a former employee of Oblio and several outside distributors worked on their own against the companies knowledge and as a result created these counterfit products. They are pursuing a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (R.I.C.O.) Act case against these individuals.

While I have no way of verifying if Titan's claim is true or not, it just seems to me as if they are using this claim of counterfeiting to cover up some bad business practices on their end. Their cards have not been working properly for months now and only this week they announce it is because of counterfeit cards on the market????

Who knows it could very well be true and the courts will be deciding this some day soon but I just have my doubts!

To tell if your cards are possible counterfit they say... "Unless the customer service number is 800-394-4868, it is counterfeit, suspended, or expired."

**The views above are my own personal opinions...

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Click Phone Card Commercial - Entrix

Here is another Spanish language commercial for the Click phone card from Entrix.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Howard Jonas Issues White Paper on Future of IDT

In a surprising move, after much silence, Howard Jonas officialy released a white paper on the current status of IDT and his views on the future direction of the company. Mainly written to address the investors concerns over recent performance, Jonas lays out why he feels IDT is performing better than the numbers indicate, blaming the shortcomings of the GAAP accounting principals for the bad overall financial picture. He claims that because of GAAP, things like training, process improvements and advertising are listed as operating expenses and not as investments in the future of the business.

The second half of the white paper lays out his vision for the future of IDT as a business and judging by the lack of any mention, Telecom does not seem to be viewed as a significant part of IDTs long term vision.

Mr Jonas points to businesses like Zedge, an online community portal, IDT Carmel, a receivables management group and it's recent Oil Shale business aquistion as the companies shinning stars. Interestingly he also mentioned another business called Depot USA which will be an online store that only sells goods made in the USA.

You can read the full white paper here

Monday, February 11, 2008

Ibasis Q4 Earnings Transcript

I was reading through the Ibasis earnings transcript today and two things caught my eye:

1) Their phone card business, like everyone else's is declining rapidly: "Our retail business consist of our retail prepaid calling card business and our Pingo eCommerce business. Revenue from our retail business in Q4 was $24.8 million compared to $32 million in Q3." They try and spin it and claim it to be the result of the cleaning up of the prepaid business... they offer clean cards now and others don't putting them at an unfair playing field.

2) Ofer Gneezy said that they anticipate 2008 to be a big year: "We said we believe 2008 will a pivotal year in the evolution of iBasis and perhaps in the evolution of the international voice business over all. " and also later goes on to say: "In addition, we believe that with our scale efficiency and focus on international voice, iBasis is perhaps uniquely positioned to lead the consolidation of this segment of the Global Telecommunications Industry." Is there something in the works here? We know they just merged with KPN but the statement above raises questions like will they be pursuing other company acquistions as well? Consolidation in the telecom business is already underway but it would suprise me if Ibasis had enough capital to be the one doing the aquiring ...

Read the Full Transcript

Saturday, February 09, 2008

La Sexy Phone Card Commercial

Another Spanish language phone card commercial for the Sexy phone card by 9278. Combines two things that everyone guy loves, hot women and Baseball.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Interesting Oblio Telecom Press Release

Titan Global Holdings issued a press release on Tuesday describing the problems they were having with their telecom division Oblio. It's interestting to see their take on why they think things are bad! Here is a quote from the press release that basically makes it look like their distributors are the ones who are screwing them not the other way around:

"Subsequent to the three months ended November 30, 2007, the Company's communications division experienced a significant decrease in sales and collections of outstanding accounts receivable. Many of the long-standing distributors of the Company's wholly owned subsidiary Oblio Telecom's products stopped placing orders for new product and stopped sending payments for previously placed orders. While we are vigorously pursuing legal action against many of these customers, the extended collection process has significantly disrupted the operating cash flow cycle of the prepaid international long distance portion of the Company's communication's division. These issues along with losses experienced in its network operations have resulted in the Company ceasing to do business as Oblio in the prepaid international long distance market. As such the Company evaluated the division's goodwill and other intangible assets for impairment based on changes in the business model. Based on the determination of management, the Company impaired the goodwill and certain intangible assets of Oblio."

So I guess they are trying to say that all of the distributors got together and just make a pact to not pay Oblio for their cards... yeah right! They also announced that they have given up the prepaid wireless business.

Read the full Titan Global Press Release

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Company Profile: Oblio Telecom

Oblio Telecom

Founded: 1995
Ticker Symbol: N/A (now owned by Titan Global Holdings trading under symbol TTGLE.OB)
Employees: 40
Locations: Richardson, Texas

Timeline

1996: Sammy Jibrin and Radu Achiriloaie open the business
2000: Land deal with AT&T to provide their back end service for all of their phone cards via the Smartalk brand.
2005: Taken over by Titan Global Holdings, Inc in exchange for stock which was later returned to Titan since the taxes would have been more than the profits. A loan was later issued that was not required to be paid back... full story - Oblio also launches it's prepaid mobile product Bravo
2006: Oblio switches it's back end provider for their phone cards to Sprint and leaves long time provider Smartalk.
2007: Oblio Telecom is name to Intelecard's 10 to Watch list (everyone knows this is the kiss of death). Oblio receives 4 million dollars back from IRS for past Federal Excise Tax payments.
2008: Oblio Phone Cards start giving much lower than advertised minutes

Other Sources:
http://www.wirelessdealermagazine.com/spring07/Downloads/pdf64-65.pdf
http://www.obliotel.com/
http://www.herdonthestreet.com/protected/Research%20Reports/TTGL%20Initiation%20Report.pdf

Monday, February 04, 2008

Using Phone Cards in Iraq - The Only Way to Call Home?

I see tons of press releases out there about groups sending over phone cards to the troops in Iraq to help them call home and always wondered if people really understood the "phone" situation over there. To help calrify, here are a few hings you should know:

1) Some Military bases have AT&T pay phones installed and allow for the use of calling cards but beware the cards won't deliver the promissed minutes because they will incur a pay phone fee and if it is a non AT&T calling card will incur at least another $1.50 network access fee. These fees come off the balance of the card, resulting in less minutes. I have even heard reports that some of the pay phones block acess to other non AT&T 800 numbers.

2) Some Morale, Welfare and Recreation posts actualy offer VOIP Phone calling and the costs can be much better than phone cards but they are harder to come bye and subject to more "lag" and quality degradation based on the internet signal strength.

3) Government DSN phones are also available in some places where a soldier connects directly to an operator who connects him/her to the party of their hoice. The rates are similar to that of calling from your home phone in the US.

4) Iraq cell phones are also available locally to the troops but you must buy them off base. From what I hear the coverage is ok but the rates are somewhat more expensive.

5) Last but not least are sat phones which are not as plentiful but they deffinately are useful in the more remote bases in Iraq where the amenities are not as plentiful.

Long story short, consult with your loved one over there and see which one of the above options is best for them and see if you can help them out in another way. Sometimes a phone card may be the best choice but other times more practical and economical methods are available.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

PT1 Talk Phone Card Commercial

Spanish language phone card commercial for the Talk phone card by PT1