A List of Some of Vivaro Corporation Creditors

I recently came across a list of some of Vivaro Corporation's outstanding creditors and the payment amount claimed to be owed. Here is a list of a few of the companies who have filed a claim with the courts to date:

• AFFILIATES OF VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS INC - $2,177,991.65
• BESTEL(USA) INC. - $275,508.62
• BLUE WOLF GROUP LLC - $107,840.00
• CALLTRADE CARRIER SVCS - $166,935.00
• CITY OF NEW YORK DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE - $410,259.00
• COMNET (USA) LLC - $406,588.30
• D EXPOSITO & PARTNERS - $800,684.72
• DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY - IRS - $195,794.95
• DIAMOND PHONE CARD - $15,000,000.00
• DIGICEL JAMAICA - $488,051.33
• EASTERN POINT COMMUNICATIONS LLC - $279,112.18
• EMPRESA NACIONAL DE TELECOMUNICACIONES SA - $840,553.90
• GENBAND US LLC - $122,079.00
• GEOTEL INTERNATIONAL LLC - $83,367.78
• GLOBAL INTERLINK LTD - $352,550.54
• IBASIS GLOBAL INC - $138,658.16
• ISEND LLC - $215,351.96
• JAZZ TELECOM S A U - $763,207.98
• LEVEL 3 COMMUNICATIONS LLC - About 2.5 million in total claims
• MARCATEL COM SA DE DV - 12,306,097.00
• RAZA COMMUNICATION INC - $3,393,167.96
• SPRINT - $17,376,272.48
• & many more...

A complete list is available here (you can search one by one or you also have the option to perform a search to get a complete list).

Please note this is only a partial list and only includes only companies who have field a claim with the courts. Other big companies on this list include many different local and state agencies throughout the country, Federal governement offices, real estate companies, banks, shipping service companies (UPS has a claim in for over 100k alone) and media agencies.

Harvard University Students Set the Record for the Longest Phone Call!

A Harvard university group called "The Harvard Generalist" have teamed up with Ibasis and their rechargeable calling card program called Pingo to attempt to get into the Guiness Book of World records for what would be the "Longest Phone Call."

The rules, according to their website dictate that the students must keep the call going and actively talk in real conversations (no gibberish or yes no type exchanges) and taking no more than 10 second pauses between comments. The time to beat: 43 hours, 8 minutes, 55 seconds. That is one long call!!! Good thing they have Pingo flipping the bill ;)

In the end they managed to do it, talking for 46 hours 12 minutes and 52 second . Congrats Guys & Gals on one of the weirdest achievements I have ever heard about!

Check out the following article from their Harvard Student Newspaper, The Crimson... it appears they had a lot of fun with this world record attempt!

>Picture above from The Harvard Crimson Newspaper shows one of the students on the active call and it seems the students decorated the room quite nicely with lots of blankets and other items to keep the participants comfy!

Ibasis Posts 2nd Quarter 09 Earnings - Not Too Bad!

Ibasis released their Q2 earning numbers yesterday and addressed their shareholders. Overall their revenues were down over last quarter coming in at $241.3 million down from $255.5 million in the previous quarter. However, the good news is that they have managed to significantly reduce their operating expenses through vigorous operational efficiency programs and a salary freeze that they implemented earlier in the year. Total operating expenses in this quarter were $21.8 million down from $22.7 million in the previous quarter. They also had significant gains in net Cash available from the first quarter leading to a somewhat more optimistic view by many shareholders.

As for their phone card division, which includes their disposable bodega cards and their e commerce business pingo.com, they stated that they had experienced a 9% growth in revenue and a 12% increase in gross margin (their 4th consecutive quarter with growth in this area). In the second quarter for retail, "gross profit was $31.8 million or 13.2% of revenue compared to gross profit of $37.5 million or 10.4% of revenue in the second quarter of 2008 and $31 million or 12.1% of revenue in the first quarter of 2009 (Seeking-Alpha)."

Overall it looks like Ibasis is keeping pace in this difficult economy and putting a much greater emphasis into generating their own minutes via phone cards as evidenced in their phone card growth numbers.

Poll Results - Which Phone Card Provider Will Do Best in 2009?

The poll results are in and here is how all of you voted on the question of "Which Phone Card Provider Will Do Best in 2009?"

62% of respondents said STI will do best in 2009
12% of respondents said IDT would do best
10% of respondents daid Locus would be better
8% of respondents said Total Call would end up as the top performer
6% of respondents said Ibasis would do best

There is no doubt that STIs recent pick up of CVT puts them in the best position for 2009 but I wouldn't count out IDT, who still controls a very slight lead in market share. While all of these companies know how to do the tried and true, the leader will be the one that branches out and adds new products to their mix like international mobile top up, prepaid mobile, and money remittance.

Pingo Adds Softphone

The popular rechargeable calling card from Ibasis called Pingo announced last week that they have added a new feature to their offer that will allow users to make calls from a softphone. The softphone is a PC based application that a user downloads from the Pingo site and he/she can use to make calls from their computer (internet connection required).

The softphone is not a new application and has long been offered by companies like Net2Phone, Skype, DeltaThree and many others but Pingo hopes that by adding this application they will open up a whole new user base of individuals outside of their current toll free and local access footprint. This service will be ideal for travelers and especially for those in the Middle East and Asia where softphone applications are commonly used. The only downside for Ibasis is that they will have a whole new fraud element that they will need to keep a close eye on going forward!

The one surprise of this offer is that they are not offering lower rates for using a softphone vs. the calling card. Odd since Pingo is actually able to save by not paying the inbound toll-free/local access charge for calls made via the softphone. I suppose they feel the convenience is the main attraction not a potential cost savings.

To learn more about this website visit their website softphone page.

Ibasis Reports Q2 Earnings - Phone Card Status

Last week Ibasis released it's Q2 earnings statement and it looks like their revenue and gross profit increased which should make their stock holders happy. I won't bore you with all of the EBITA and overall financial breakdown (if you want to read about it go here).

As for their calling card business here is what Offer Gneezy, CEO had to say:

"Our retail business in which traffic comes directly to our network from retail consumers began to stabilize in Q2 with growth in minutes and relatively flat revenue. Gross profit declined as the result of the introduction of new calling cards which we believe will help to drive future growth. While there is continuing softness in the economy and other factors affecting the pre-paid calling market we expect modest growth in the balance of the year."

Looks like their calling card business is continuing to shrink just like everybody else. I think their Pingo business is doing ok and probably holding steady and it is most likely their distribution phone card business that is seeing the big decline. Here is Richard Tennant, CFO breakdown:

"Our retail business consists of our retail pre-paid calling card business and our Pingo e-commerce business. Revenue from our retail business for the second quarter was $20.9 million compared to $27.9 million in the second quarter of 2007 and $20.6 million in the first quarter of 2008. "

Online Calling Card Pingo Lowers Rates to Over 70 Destinations

The popular online only rechargeable calling card Pingo provided by Ibasis announced this week that they have lowered rates to both mobile and fixed lines on over 70 locations by as much as 59%. The rate reduction is facilitated by new efficiencies and streamlined carrier relationships at Ibasis and is geared at trying to be more competitive than it's other online rivals such as pennytalk.com and pinzoo.com.

Some highlights of the the rate reductions include:

Jordan - Lowered by 58%
Bangladesh - Lowered by 57%
Iraq - Lowered by 59%
Iraq Baghdad - Lowered by 48%

The complete list of rate reductions can be seen here

Ibasis Q1 2008 Earnings Call

Ibasis conducted their Q1 2008 earnings call on Monday and the news was not good. Their stock tumbled almost $1 on the news of the poorer than expected results. They posted a loss of $2.1 million, or 3 cents per share, on sales of $324.9 million dollars.

As for their retail calling card business here is how Ofer Gneezy addressed the topic:

"The retail prepaid calling card market was hampered this quarter by the general softness in the US economy and other factors affecting the employment of migrant workers, a demographic that the accounts for a significant portion of prepaid calling card usage. This factors in the continued effect of the industry transition to more transparent pricing combined to put pressure on our retail business in the quarter. Along with other major providers in the calling card industry, iBasis is playing a leadership role in the creation of an independent association of prepaid calling card providers that will establish standards of ethical business practices and monitor the industry and effectively certify vendor services. We believe this trend is very positive for consumers of prepaid calling products and for iBasis, as we have a significant advantage in our network in low cost of operations. In the mean time, we continue to work with high integrity distributors and market quality products that create value in the iBasis brand."

Sounds like a chapter taken right out of IDT's earnings call to explain the poor performance of the calling card business. Why can't these guys just come right out and say it that the phone card buisiness is not and will not be what it used to be! At least they could help manage investors excpectations. The quote above is from the full earning call transcript which can be viewed at Seeking Alpha.

Traditional Telco Decline

If you look at the stock market performance over the last year you will see an alarming trend among traditional pure telco providers. Companies like IDT, Level3, Ibasis, and even Qwest have seen dramatic reductions in their overall stock prices.

>>IDT went from around $11.20 a share in March of 07 to roughly $3.70 a share in March 2008

>>Level3 went from around $6.20 a share in March of 07 to roughly $1.83 a share in March 2008

>>Ibasis went from around $10.00 a share in March of 07 to roughly $3.75 a share in March 2008

>>Qwest went from around $8.70 a share in March of 07 to roughly $5.09 a share in March 2008

This trend is no doubt not a coincidence and is reflective of these companies poor performances financially and a sign of the changing industry. Unless you are a Telco provider offering a mobile service like Verizon, Sprint and others, your business is not part of the future of Telecommunications. Analysts see mobile as the future and are not impressed by anything a traditional player can come up with... Even VOIP providers like Vonage and Packet8 are seen as yesterdays technology and not collecting much on the trading floor.

I have a feeling we will be seeing a lot of consolodation going on amoungst these traditional Teleco's in the coming months and years. It is the only way they will be able to continue as market share keeps dropping.

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

Ibasis Joins the Movement Towards Cleaner Phone Cards

Well the latest company to join in on the "clean" phone card movement and capitalize on the PR is Ibasis. They announced their new program called "TruePrompts" which will always announce the exact minutes you are going to be delivered.

Is it just me or does it seem kind of odd for a company to come up with a program which basically says we are delivering what we are supposed to deliver... why do you need to come up with a trademarked program to do this?

I guess the phone card business is trying to change it's image in order to gain back some of the customers that they lost due to their previous unscrupulous practices. Too little to late is my opinion!

View TruePrompt Press Release

Ibasis and KPN Are Now One Company

Ibasis just recently announced that they have merged with Royal KPN N.V., the national carrier of the Netherlands, and that they will be taking over control of KPN's international carrier services unit in addition to receiving 55 million dollars in exchange for 40 million shares of Ibasis common stock (giving KPN a 51% stake in Ibasis).

This deal seems like an effort for KPN to outsource it's international termination infrastructure and maintenance to a more cost effective and efficient VOIP company without having to reinvent their existing TDM network.

This deal single handily moves Ibasis into the top three international carriers in the world and should lock up their position as the strongest VOIP carrier in the market today. Ibasis which has been around since 1996 is also a leading provider of prepaid calling cards here in the US.

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