Titan Global Holdings to Try and get Listed on the NASDAQ

Titan Global Holdings, the parent company of Oblio Telecom, announced today their plans to get listed on the NASDAQ. While not a sure thing to be accepted it would be a good thing for those of us in the prepaid world as we would be able to see all of Oblio's actual financials and internal goings on and hence would be able to scrutinize as closely as we do IDT. Currently Titan is listed in the OTC Bulletin Board Market but they are not subject to the intense scrutiny like a NASDAQ member has to adhere to!

Titan is a very diverse company with prepaid Oblio only being one of many different lines of business (oil, detergents and more).

One thing of interest in the press release is that they reveal that their phone card services are provided by Sprint and Level 3. I know some of you probably knew this already but it was news to me! Last I remember they were using at&t.

Titan Wireless Lands Distribution Deal with Pilot Gas Station Chain

Looks like Ttitan Wireless (Our friends from Oblio) should get a big distribution boost with it's most recent deal that will put Titan brands like Bravo Mobile, Picante Movil, and Ready Mobile into the 281 Pilot travel centers nationwide.

Pilot operates travel centers accross the US on various interstate highways. Offering gas, food and convinience stores at each rest stop location.

2007 JD Power and Associates Prepaid Wireless Customer Satisfaction Results

JD Power and Associates released their 2007 prepaid wireless customer satisfaction results yesterday and to no surprise Virgin Mobile was on top! Also this being the second year for the study, the customer satisfaction results seemed to be much improved over 2006 numbers. The reason for the improvement was mostly due to much more attractive plan offerings and better pricing.

Virgin Mobile won the top spot for the second year in a row followed by at&t GO Phone, Boost Mobile and T-Mobile To Go.

While this report mostly grades service providers based on a few key service and pricing issues it also includes a few nice industry related statistics which I thought may be of interest to everyone here:
"

• Prepaid users spend an average of $38 when purchasing additional airtime. Comparatively, the average monthly service cost for typical postpaid customers is $71.
• Prepaid customers report using 218 minutes per month, less than one-half as much as postpaid customers, who average 528 minutes per month.
• Approximately 59 percent of prepaid phones that are prepackaged with minutes are purchased from retail stores, while an additional 25 percent of customers report purchasing a prepackaged phone via the Internet. Approximately 16 percent of customers purchase activated minutes cards separately from their cell phones.
• The percentage of prepaid customers who use a card provided by their local retailer to purchase additional airtime minutes is equal to the percentage of customers who use the provider's Web site to do so
• 36 percent. Thirteen percent of prepaid customers use their handsets to purchase additional minutes in 2007, which has increased from 10 percent in 2006."

To read more about the survey and read the whole piece from the above quote, go to JD Power web site

IDT Looses Appeal on Lawsuit by Former Executive

This news is a little old (I must have missed this one) but I thought everyone here might find it interesting. Alfred West, the current President & CEO of Xchange Telecom, Inc., had originally filed suit against IDT for what he claims was a breach of contract when he was forced out after only 6 months of employment (Feb 2001 to August 2001). West presented a handwritten agreement that he had signed by Howard Jonas which was reportedly to guarantee him 15 million over the life of the deal (you have to read the court document to see the insane amount of cash and it's breakdown).

It appears as if West, a former executive at Econophone and Viatel was given the promise of emplyment in exhange for brinign his contacts and much of the Viatel buisness and property rights on board. From what IDT contended, Wright falsely promised the rights to things he did not have any ownership of so therefore they let him walk and was the preliminary defense IDT used.

The original decision was in favor of IDT claiming that he did not have sufficient right to be paid the remaining un-worked period of the contract but a court of appeals has just overturned this decision and sided in favor of Mr. West.

If all stands up IDT will be forced to pay up! Only took 5 years for this guy to get through the lawsuits but I guess it's worth it for 15 million!

To view the full court of appeals document click here

Phone Card Commercial - Week 13

Here is a Mexican commercial for the Buena calling card. Slightly higher production value than what we are used to in the US for calling card advertisements.

Charter Announces New Calling Card and Phone Card Industry Gets Bashed at the Same Time!

Just read a story in the St Louis Post-Dispatch, announcing that Charter communications is launching a pinless dial phone card in the United States which is good to see but unfortunately the angle of the story was that Charter was launching a clean card because the rest of the industry is dirty!

Just another in the long line of bad press for the prepaid calling card industry!

You can read the whole story here

Phone Cards and Pending Legislature - Nothing New!

As you read in two of my earlier posts two government officials, Congressman Eliot Engel from New York and Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, have recently taken up the fight against the "corrupt practices" of the prepaid calling card industry. Spurred on most likely by the recent lawsuit by IDT against it's competitors and the accompanying press that this brought to the industry (NY Post Article and the recent Business Week story).

It's not the first time that the industry has been investigated by government officials but what makes this time different is that one of the industries own is leading the charge. While it looks like the only thing that will change is that calling card companies will just have to write down longer disclaimers, the "standard practices" probably won't change much! Customers demand lower rates and the only way to get "your slice of the pie" is advertising the lowest possible rate even if the fees have to be high to get to that rate.

The fact of the matter that the once lucrative business is drying up... I like to use the analogy, it's like putting a bunch of lawyers in a room and telling them the guy in the corner is the only potent ital customer they have left! They will beg borrow and steal to get that guys business! It's the bad side of the business but I guess my point is that the current behavior is not unique to the calling card business.

Phone Card Commercial - Week 12

Here is another interesting commercial for a Vietnamese calling card from a company called Lunex Telecom.

Congressman Eliot Engel pushes Calling Card Consumer Protection Act

Looks like another politician is trying to clean up the international calling cards business. Congressman Eliot Engel, who serves parts of Westchester and Putnma counties in NY, is in the process of introducing a bill called the "calling card consumer protection act" that would regulate the practices of calling card issuers forcing them to clearly deffine all fess and taxes and provide a clear "live" operator phone number where consumers can call to get more information on the card or assistance.

Read the whole thing at the Mid Hudson News

Detroit Phone Cards Up for Sale!

Looks like Rami Chahine, President and Owner of Detroit Phone Cards may have a buyer lined up for his phone card distribution business. Pavis Corporation, a telecommunications carrier with a strong calling card business, has signed a letter of intent to purchase the company (read more about Pavis in Yahoo Finance). From the press release it says that Detroit Phone Cards has 24 million in annual phone card sales and another 6 million in prepaid mobile sales. The claim is that the acquisition will help Pavis strengthen their calling card and prepaid wireless business but I can't help but wonder if this does not have shades of the Clifton Digital acquisition by Telstar International from years back.

In my mind there are only two reasons that a phone card distributor would be bought; Because they owe a carrier lots of money and the carrier can't afford to let the distributor die and risk not getting anything back (i.e. Clifton Digital/Telstar deal) or the carrier wants to secure a distributor and try to copy the successful IDT/UTA model (Epana/Hector tried this a while back).

Either way this is a significant happening in what has been a relatively quite couple of months in the prepaid world. Detroit Phone Cards has been around for a while and in this business that says a lot. I wish them luck with the endevor!

Phone Card Commercial - Week 11

Here is a commercial for a company called RingPakistan.com which is not too bad.

Verizon Launches Prepaid Translation Card

OK Now I have seen it all.... Verizon just announced the launch of a new prepaid calling card service that will provide on demand language translation via a phone call. Aimed at travelers, business men or anyone interacting with people who either speak no English or just a limited amount, the card provides translations to and from over 170 different languages. These cards are fully rechargeable and offer 24/7 access for Spanish translation and more limited hours for other languages.

Verizon is carrying all of the cards and marketing it with the Verizon name, but the actual translation service is being provided by Language Line, an existing translation call center. Cards can be used from the US or over 100 different international locations and are available in $35, $50, and $100 denominations. From what I can tell the service is not cheap and those cards will be eaten up fast...

To find out more about this product visit http://interpreter.verizon.com/

Florida Attorney General Subpoenas Calling Card Players

Florida Attorney General, Bill McCollum, has decided to take on prepaid companies and see if their offerings are really as deceptive as everyone says. Most likely spurred on by the press from the recent IDT/UTA lawsuit brought against other calling card companies for "unfair business practices."

McCollum has subpoenaed some major calling card players like: CVT Prepaid Solutions, Inc.; Blackstone Calling Card, Inc.; Alternatel, Inc.; Prima Communications, Inc., also known as PCI; Cinco Telecom Corp., doing business as Orbitel; Cristel Telecom, LLC; STi Prepaid, LLC, doing business as STi; Union Telecard Alliance, LLC, also known as UTA; IDT America, Corp, also known as IDT; and Total Call International, Inc., also known as Total Call Mobile, Inc.

I can't really see this going anywhere substantial or doing anything of note other than give McCollum a little positive press. IDT/UTAs lawsuit is going to go nowhere just like this investigation. Prepaid has been doing deceptive business practices for years and I can't tell you how many times I have seen this witch hunt conducted in the past with no results!

Blackstone Out of Trouble!

In a follow up to a story I posted about back in February, Blackstone has successfully fought the fine that the FCC brought against them for failure to file the appropriate papers for a licensed telecommunications carrier.

Blackstone apparently ignored requests from the FCC asking them to file and make certain types of paperwork available and as a result was hit with a $20,000 fine. Blackstone has since provided the paper work proving that they are not a long distance carrier, just a distributor, and as a result the $20,000 fine has been removed and the matter dropped.

A lot of distributors make claims to be carriers, but as you can see the risk is too great and the cost too high. Blackstone is a more well established company with good legal representation and had the ability to get out of this fine but many smaller distributors should beware!

To read the complete ruling in this matter go to the FCC Website.

Will SunRocket's Closure Mean More Business for Us?

The VOIP world, which has been gaining lots of popularity due to Vonage's huge marketing spend, has experienced a huge blow this past week with SunRocket closing it's doors. The potential set back this had for the industry as a whole had so many of the major players worried, including Net2Phone and ViaTalk, that they rushed out and offered to pick up many of the remaining months of service for these customers free of charge.

SunRocket had about 200,000 customers at the time of it's closure, most of whom were locked into long 1 or 2 year contracts. What hurt the most was the fact that the customers had prepaid for their years of service and in the end were left holding the bag. Add this to the fact that Vonage is on shaky ground with the impending punitive patent infringement lawsuit from Verizon, and you have an industry whose future does not look so great.

For those of us in the prepaid calling card market can we look at this like one man's failure is another man's gain? It is still unsure how much these VOIP services contributed to the downturn in the phone card business in the first place, but it would be hard to believe that they did not at least play some small part in taking customers away. But before you go thinking that the business will go back to where it was, think about it long and hard. Some will come back but unfortunately it will most likely not be too many!

There are still so many other attractive long distance services gaining momentum like: prepaid mobile phones, Free PC to PC clients (Skype), Callback, Unlimited calling plans from traditional PTTs and many others. With all of these companies chasing the same pie, it is doubtful that prepaid phone cards can regain much. We are just an older out dated model whose only play left is with lower pricing and appealing to the credit challenged and recent immigrant markets (a group that is also becoming more savvy to the other alternatives).

Don't get me wrong... I am not saying prepaid phone cards are going to disappear tomorrow, it's just that this impending hardship in the VOIP industry is not going to mean many more sales for us!

Phone Card Commercial - Week 10 - Homies

A really budget commercial but I love the card name and concept!

Get a Pizza and a Phone Card!

Just read an interesting press release that a pizza chain out of Texas, Pizza Patron, will begin selling unlimited Mexico calling cards in all of their restaurants. The service is provided by BlagCard(TM) and the calls are mainly carried by at&t. Pizza Patron currently has over 60 stores in Texas as well as in a few surrounding states, with another 40 or so chains set to open within the next year.

Cards will be sold in $5, $10 and $30 denominations, delivering either 2, 7 or 30 days of unlimited calling to Mexico.

While the press release does not say if these cards will be available with delivery of a pizza, it is an interesting concept and truly a unique partnership the likes that this industry has never seen before.

IDT Gets A Bum Rap!

I keep getting questions and comments about IDT like so "How long do you think IDT has left?" and "Man do they suck" but somehow I can't help but feel like IDT is getting a bad rap!

I think people need to take a step back and realize one thing, if IDT is doing bad then most likely the other phone card companies are doing bad. The only difference is that IDT is a publicly traded company and all of their results have to made available to the masses, while the other companies can hide their woes.

The reality is that the phone card business is not what it used to be and never will be as big as it was ever again. However, this does not mean that international calling cards are a dead business, there is still a large market, it just will not provide the numbers like it used to do. I can't help but wonder if we were all allowed to see the financials of companies like STI, Dollar Phone, Locus, CVT, and Oblio that the downward trend would be the same!

Phone Card Commercial - Week 9 - Max

Sorry Everyone... Was out on vacation but I thought I would get back into the swing of things with this great phone card commercial from Europe for the Max calling card.

Enjoy!

Phone Card Commercial - Week 8 - TelePinoy

Here is a Filipino commercial for the TelePinoy calling card. A little higher production value than some of the Spanish language ones but still on the low end.