Gasolina Latina Phone Card Commercial

I guess if you buy this phone card your car will turn into a Sports Car and you will get all of the women ;)

IDT Releases Q4 Financials and The Numbers are Poor as Expected!

IDT Corporation released it's 4th Quarter earnings on Monday and the results were as expected... poor! In total they had a net loss of $86.4 million mostly due to what they are claiming as restructuring costs. The company has undergone what it calls a major restructuring and to be fair this was announced in the Q3 results and investors were warned that this expense would be hitting the books in Q4. This exercise is going to provide IDT with what they claim will be a cash flow positive business by end of Q1 09.

There is no doubt that IDT has come upon rough economic times and is in need of some major changes to help it survive, but I am afraid this down turn is not unique to them and I am sure if other phone card companies were publicly listed (most of which are not), we would see the same results on their books.

IDT has to accept the fact that telecom is a shrinking business and in order to survive they need to streamline operations considerably. While cutting staff will be the main way to get there, they can't just cut blindly, they will need to streamline all back end operations through new management styles, outsourcing and new systems. This company will ultimately need find another new big cash generating business now or be in the neighbourhood of less than 500 total employees by the end of fiscal 09 in order to have enough cash to survive.

Don't get me wrong, I think IDT CAN DO IT and WILL find a way to survive. However, they need to pick up the pace in order to keep check with the market. Phone cards may be a shrinking business but they will still remain a real business for many years to come!

Interesting Article on Luis Arias President of Blackstone Calling Card Inc.

With all of the negative press and horror stories circulating around the media today, I thought I would share a more positive and upbeat story that I found from Smart Business on Luis Aria President of Blackstone Calling Card Inc. the article basically profiles how Arias runs his business and seems to point to how he tries to keep involved and paints a picture of Blackstone being a great place to work and a business with it's eye on the bottom line.

Here is the link to the article "Dialed In - How Luis Arias keeps Blackstone Calling Card consistently growing by getting everyone to work together"

September Poll Results Are In and the Winner Is....

Or September poll is now closed and the winner, as chosen by you the readers, for the lucky honor of being October's Phone Card of the Month is.... Los Temerarios card by CVT Prepaid (now STI) with a whopping 45% of the total vote. In second place was the Thank You card from SDI with 18% of the vote and in third place we had a tie between the S Card from Locus and the Boss card from IDT each with 13% of the total vote.

Be sure to vote in this months poll question "What is your best month for sales of phone cards?"

El Patron Phone Card Commercial

Here is a rather low budget but effective commercial for the El Patron phone card.

Letter From Laurette Veres - CEO Intelecard News Magazine

I received what amounts to a fond farewell letter via email on Thursday from the CEO of Intelecard News, Laurette Veres. The letter is basically to inform everyone once again of the end of Intelecard News (now part of Wireless Dealer Magazine) and to thank all of the readers for the last 14 years of readership. Here is the letter I received via email from Laurette in it's entirety:

Since 1994, my focus has been to provide news and information to the prepaid industry through InteleCardNews Magazine, www.intelecard.com and www.InteleCardExpo.com With over 250 print editions and 25 national expos, I've tracked this dynamic market place and the people in it. Providing news and information to the prepaid industry has been a nearly 15-year focus.

It has been my pleasure to track an incredibly dynamic marketplace and the dedicated entrepreneurs who have made it so. Yet the industry is still evolving; so
are we. I am pleased to announce the next phase in the InteleCard odyssey - a strategic merger with Wireless Dealer Magazine & Expo. As the prepaid and wireless industries converge, this merger is in-step with that trend to the benefit of our expansion and yours.

A refreshed energy generated by these markets will inspire your ongoing success with new ideas and the prospect of new partnerships and clients. InteleCardNews and Expo is dedicated to that, which is why I am personally inviting you to meet old and new players at our upcoming Expo. Join me there, and see what is possible for the next phase in your ventures.

Thank you for your loyalty and support, after all these years, and I can't wait to see you in Las Vegas !

Laurette Veres
CEO,
Intelecard News Magazine
www.wirelessdealerexpo.com

STI Takes Over CVT

I reported about a month back in my post "Rumor - STI in Talks with CVT Prepaid" about the rumored take over by STI of CVT Prepaid... well now it is officially not a rumor anymore!

Inside sources at those companies tell me that the "merger/takeover" is now complete and things are underway in merging the two companies together. For now it looks like STI will continue to utilize the CVT brand name at least for a little while and work to transition over all new pin generating over to the STI platform.

Operationally everything is still intact at CVT and no formal plans or layoffs have been announced about the merger, but I don't doubt that the CVT platform will be phased out eventually, since maintaining two independent calling card platforms makes no financial sense.

I'm sure STI will find some valuable resources in CVT (personnel, technology, hardware) and incorporate those into their operations but overall I think CVT as we know it will be gone by the end of the year. They had a good run but the industry has shrunk too much to sustain all of these companies. I'm also sure it won't be the last consolidation we see in this business this year!

International Prepaid Mobile Top Up Programs Gaining Steam

A year or two ago the concept of paying for someones overseas prepaid mobile phone did not exist. If you wanted to do this you had to wire money via Western Union to your family or friend and trust that they would spend the money on their mobile phone top up. But let's be honest, a lot of people had problems with the fact that the money was not always being used on essential items like it was supposed to! Now we are starting to see the beginnings of an industry that will provide people with a piece of mind, by allowing them to pay for their friends or families prepaid mobile phone service from right here in the US.

The service is being called Mobile Top-Up and works much like a money remittance type of program except that the funds are going instantly to the mobile phone company to pay for the service. The product is usually sold online, but is also starting to be sold in card form at convenience stores. The amount of international mobile phone providers participating in these types of programs are limited right now, but as the concept gains in popularity, more and more are likely to enter the fray.

A few companies I could find on the web offering such a service are:

ARYTY - Company owned by Gorilla Mobile offering top-ups for Philippines mobile carriers and just recently adding India Mobile carriers to their product line.

EZETOP (Offering Top-Ups for just about all Caribbean countries) - Available online or through Blackstone Touch-N-Buy Kiosks

CYBERPLAT - A Mobile Top Up company facilitating mobile top ups throuout Russia, Kazakhstan and the Ukraine.

MORE MAGIC - A mobile payment platform provider that just partnered with Vendtek, a provider of automated transaction software company to distribute mobile-top ups through Vendtek's existing base.

IDT INTERNATIONAL MOBILE TOP-UP - While there is no mobile partners clearly listed on their site it appears as if they have some mobile carriers signed up if they are offering this service.

*********************
Note - Here are some interesting articles on mobile payments and value transfer and another white paper from Atos a Mobile payment enabler.

teCuento Milamores Phone Card Commercial

Here is a Spanish language commercial for the teCento prepaid calling card.

Reminder To Vote On The Online Poll for September

I know we are only half way through the month but I just wanted to remind everyone to vote for their favorite card series. The survey can be found just to the right of here and lasts until the end of the month. The winner of this poll will be featured on the Card of the Month section for October.

So don't miss it and get your votes in now!

IDT Expands Oil Shale Business Into Israel as Shares Drop Below $1

IDT Corp has been granted a licence to produce oil from oil share reserves in Israel. The deal will allow IDT 7 years exclusivity on mining and extracting oil from the countries vast oil shale fields between Kiryat Gat and Bet Shemesh. This deal follows only months after IDT had purchased the rights to rich oil shale land in Western Colorado.

This deal seems to solidify the fact that IDT Chairman, Howard Jonas, views the oil shale business and not so much telecom, as the future of the company. Investors seem to be reluctant to believe that this oil shale industry can be capitalized on any time soon, as witnessed in the sharply declining company stock price, dropping below the $1 mark for the first time today even after the announcement of the deal in Israel!

Senate Panel Hearing on Prepaid Phone Cards Concludes

On Wednesday a Senate panel hearing was conducted on the prepaid calling card business. Presentations included those by Federal Trade Commission Chairman William Kovacic, Hispanic Institute President Gus West, Senator Bill Nelson (D. Fla.), executive director of the National Consumers League Sally Greenberg, commissioner of the New York State Public Service Commission Patricia Acampora, and director of marketing for the Military Marketing, LLC, a New York-based firm that helps businesses market their products to the military Rosemary O'Brien.

While no formal decisions were made or laws enacted at this meeting, the presenters all stated their case that the prepaid calling card business has been engaged in deceptive marketing practices and that more enforcement was needed to bring these companies into line. One such proposal, is the bill S. 2998, the Prepaid Calling Card Consumer Protection Act of 2008 which would call for tougher enforcement on all prepaid calling card distributors and providers to ensure that consumers are being accurately informed of all of the charges and fees in order to make more informed purchasing decisions.

Perhaps the most compelling case was made by Hispanic Institute President Gus West, whose group conducted a long term study on prepaid calling cards back in 2007 and found that the majority of all cards in the market delivered significantly less than advertised minutes.

To find out more you can read the full transcript of the Senate hearing

Ruby Phone Card Commercial

Here is a fairly sexy Spanish language phone card commercial

Touch-Tel Selects Phone House, Inc. As Master Distributor in California

Phone House, Inc. a subsidiary of China Voice Holding Corporation (CHVC) (PINKSHEETS: CHVC) has been selected by Touch-Tel as it's master distributor for Southern California. Phone House has over 90 sub distributors which servce over 5,000 retailers and expects to sell over 15 million anualy of Touch-Tel branded cards. The cards that will be given exclusively to Phone House include: La Salvadorena California, La Hondurena Especial California, La Guatemalteca ORO California, La Hondurena MEGA California, Mexico Celular MEGA, De dos California, Mexico MEGA California, La Hondurena Oro California, La Guatemalteca MEGA California, La Guatemalteca California and La Salvadorena California.

The move is an important one for Touch-Tel who will now lock up a relatively new market for them. Expect to see other new exclusive cards by Touch-Tel in this market within the coming weeks and months.

The Results Of The August Survey Are In....

Well the results are in to our August survey question: "What Is Your Biggest Concern With The Prepaid Business?" The number one concern by a landslide as voted by you the readers was the poor economy followed in a distant second place by "competition" and tied with one vote a piece were "regulations" and "supply costs."

I can't say I am surprised by these results but it was interesting to see by how large of a margin that the poor economy beat out competition.

We are changing up this months survey a little by allowing you to vote for next month's featured card of the month. The winning prepaid phone card will be featured for October on the card of the month section of the site on the right hand side.

Don't Forget to Vote On My August Survey

Just a reminder to all of my regular readers, don't forget to vote in our online survey "What Is Your Biggest Concern With The Prepaid Business?"

- Regulations
- Poor Economy
- Competition
- Supply Costs

To vote just go the survey box on the right hand side of the page and select your answer. The survey runs to the end of August and the results will be posted sometime in the first week in September.

Cinco Telecom Corp. Settle With Florida Attorney Generals Office

Just one month after reaching settlements with 10 major prepaid phone card companies, Attorney General Bill McCollum has reached a settlement with an 11th company, Florida based Cinco Telecom Corp. (dba Orbitel). The company agreed to revise it's advertising to be more reflective of the actual minutes delivered and also agreed to pay an undisclosed sum to the Florida Attorney Generals office to help cover the costs of this year long investigation.

The settlement is in line with what the 10 other companies agreed to and Cinco Telecom, while a little late in their settlement, was stated to have been very cooperative with the state agency in all of their investigations. The company, like the other 10, has also agreed to auditing for the next 3 years to ensure that they maintain a fair and honest advertising practice. It is not know at this point if other companies are still under investigation at this time.

Philippines Telco Globe Releases Phone Cards in the US

In a move to help expand their sales efforts, Globe Telecom announced last week that they would begin selling phone cards in the United States via a partnership with the popular Filipino grocery chain Seafood City Supermarkets. The grocery chain has 16 locations in the US, primarily on the west coast in California and Nevada.

While the deal is not huge and likely will not deliver huge numbers, it is indicative of a trend with worldwide carriers trying to expand their reach into the US market by leveraging their brand name that are well known to expatriates of those countries. We saw Blackstone do this before with their ETB cards and also have seen other similar offers from other worldwide PTTs.

There is no doubt that we will be hearing more about Globe's play in the US market with eventual expansion into the East Coast areas like NY and New Jersey.

Read the Full Article or visist Globe's USA Phone Card website at: http://www.globekababayan.com.ph/Articles.aspx?aid=158

Intelecard No More!

I thought it fitting to write a post about the fact that Intelecard no longer exists on the day when their rival the Prepaid Press Expo kicks off!

I received an email from Intelecard last week announcing that Intelecard is now a part of Wireless Dealer Magazine and sure enough if you type in http://www.intelecard.com/ you get redirected to the Wireless Dealer Magazine website. I can't say this is a surprise or a disappointment since the Magazine has been almost non-existent for the last year or so and their web site looked like it was maintained by my 2 year old nephew. There just wasn't enough room in this shrinking business for two major publications and expo's and the Prepaid Press just seemed to want it more.

While this does remove a major press source and advertising channel for many of us, I am sure the Prepaid Press will more than pick up the slack and improve their publication and expo even more now that they are the only game in town! But advertisers beware, now that they are a monopoly in this area they might find reason to increase their advertising rates... but I hope not!

Prepaid Press Expo - Only Days Away

Well since the Prepaid Press Expo is now the only pure prepaid Expo left, you don't want to miss the upcoming show! It is only days away now and will be held at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas August 19th through 21st so be sure to make your travel bookings now!

The schedule for the show looks like this:

Exhibit Hall Hours:
Wednesday, August 20, 2008: 10:00am – 5:00pm
Thursday, August 21, 2008: 10:00am – 3:00pm

Toga Party at Garden of the Gods Pool (Caesars Palace):
Wednesday, August 20, 2008, 8:00pm –10:00pm

Conference Schedule:
8:30am – 5:00pm (Tues-Wed-Thurs)

Day One:

Tuesday, August 19, 2007 - Prepaid Long Distance Track

Day Two

Wednesday, August 20, 2007 - Prepaid Wireless Track

Day Three

Thursday, August 21, 2007 - Prepaid/Alternative Payments Track

It's not too late to still get a discount as the Exhibit hall pass is $25 off until the day of the show and the conference passes are discounted by 10% until the day of the show. visit the Prepaid Press Expo website to register.

Pica Pica Phone Card Commercial - CVT

Here is a cool commercial by CVT prepaid for the Pica Pica phone card.

La Porra Mexicana Phone Card Commercial

Here is a Spanish language commercial from UTA for the Porra Mexicana phone card.

Rumor - STI in Talks with CVT Prepaid

There are rumors coming out that STI might be in talks with CVT Prepaid about a potential buyout. Not sure if STI wants to buy out the company or just buy their brands and active phone cards.

While I have not heard anything about CVT being in any kind of dire financial difficulties, in today's shrinking prepaid phone card market a buyout to gain market share might actually make sense. IDT still leads the way in terms of cards sold but a merger between these two companies would surely put STI at or at least close to the top!

Other than this I really don't have many details to share but stay tuned to my blog for updates!

Viscom Gets Creative and Releases a Phone Card "Consumer Bill of Rights"

Viscom International Inc., an Atlanta based provider of phone cards and marketing services, created a new marketing gimmick to cash in on the recent bad press the phone card business has been receiving. They have created the first phone card "Consumer Bill of Rights" to help set a new standard on the phone card business.

Their Bill of Rights goes as follows:

-- The consumer will always receive the number of minutes that
is prompted on a call.

There will NEVER be a voice prompt given on a phone card that does not deliver what the consumer expects on that call -- the number of minutes on the voice prompt will ALWAYS be the number of minutes delivered on that call. If the voice prompt says 60 minutes, that does not mean 58 minutes.

-- Viscom fee information is 100% transparent.

All fees or other methods of reducing the original value or remaining balance will be disclosed on each card, rate posters, Viscom's Web site, and other point-of-sale materials.

-- Viscom products will be easy to use and understand.

Viscom products will always be easy to use (access numbers clearly identified), easy to understand (in the consumer's own language) and will explain exactly what the consumer will receive with their purchase (rate structure clearly explained).

-- Viscom offers real Spanish language customer service.

Viscom consumers will have full access to a live customer service representative, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in the customer's own language.

-- Viscom offers a 100% product guarantee.

If the product does not work to the customer's satisfaction, Viscom will replace the product or provide a refund.

-- All Viscom products offer quality minutes.

Viscom offers a typical grace period of 25 seconds on each call to ensure customers are not charged if their call is answered by an answering machine or if they call a wrong number.

Source Marketwatch

IDT Leases 39 GHz Spectrum To Clearwire

Clearwire in their move to push their huge investment in WiMAX technology forward has signed 3 one year leases for the 39GHz spectrum from IDT Spectrum. Beta tests are already underway in Portland Oregon with a full roll out in that city, as well as 3 other cities (Las Vegas, Grand Rapids, and Atlanta), expected to be complete by sometime in early 2009. Competitor Xohm is expected to do similar launches this year in cities like Baltimore, Chicago, and Washington D.C. so the race is on!

IDT Spectrum had held the licence for 39GHz for sometime and up until recently these spectrum's were not seen to have much value but with this recent WiMAX push it is likely that the spectrum's will now start delivering some value to their owners.

Could this have been the big deal with a telco that Howard Jonas referred to in his conference call addressing the shareholders?

Full Article: Clearwire’s WiMAX Tests: Acquisition of IDT’s Spectrum

Philadelphia Soul and Virgin Mobile USA Team Up to Offer Free Concert

In what looks like a very cool move Virgin Mobile and the Philadelphia Soul of the Arena Football League, announced that they will be holding a free concert in the Philadelphia area to celebrate the recent win by the Soul in ArenaBowl XXII. So far they have only announced that Bon Jovi will be performing but are said to have others as well.The Soul are owned by Rocker Jon Bon Jovi and a consortium of others so it only makes sense that Bon Jovi would headline the event. Full details of who, what, when and where are supposed to be announced this week.

This will be the first of special promotions that Virgin Mobile and the Philadelphia Soul will be doing together and is expected to continue through the next 2009 season with Virgin Mobile subscribers getting priority access to events like this and other Soul activities and games.

I am not completely sure yet but it may be that the only way to get into this free concert is through being a Virgin Mobile customer or at least getting someone who is a Virgin Mobile customer to get you the tickets.

A very cool tie in promotion... koodos to Virgin for this unique approach to youth marketing!

Prepaid Calling Card Consumer Protection Act Hearing Delayed

With all of the recent uproar from local officials about the deceptive practices in the phone card industry, it looked like the issue was finally going to reach the federal level, with scheduled hearings to be conducted by the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on Senator Bill Nelson's (D-FL) proposed bill S. 2998. However, it looks like that hearing has been postponed with no new date given leaving us to wonder if the calling card persecution movement is truly dying down?

It was commonly known that IDT had been the lead lobbyist for reforms in the business, utilizing heavy political contributions and insider CEO Jim Courter's connections to help push these initiatives along. However, with Jim Courter's recently being forced to step down from John McCain's fund raising committee due to the scandal behind a shady IDT and Telco Haiti deal, the movement may have lost it's conductor.

It's my personal opinion that the worst of the witch hunt against the phone card industry for the last few months may be behind us. It will never completely go away, but I think the process has run it's course, with lot's of positive changes in the industry like a higher percentage of cleaner cards, clearer advertising and most of all more legitamate overall business practices.

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. "

MVNO Landscape Shrinking! What Does The Future Hold?

The last few months have been a trying time for MVNO's in the US, with many companies like Emabrq, Movida and Sonopia closing it's doors and others like kajeet rapidly downsizing. Clearly one of the few MVNOs that managed to succeed (an I use that word loosely) is Virgin Mobile, but even they are having a tough time as of late adding subscribers.

If you look at the wireless industry in the US as a whole, it is clear why MVNOs are having a difficult time:

1) Post paid wireless companies like Sprint are now offering flat rate all you can eat plans. They are a bit expensive right now but that price will drop considerably over the coming years making prepaid services less necessary to help users manage their spending.

2) Rapidly changing handset technology and the coolness factor of phones is what usualy drives a customer to a particular brand or service. This has always been the achilles heel for MVNOs, as they generally have less variety and are usually forced in to lower cost phones to keep their entry costs low and appealing. The iPhone in particular is what is causing youth oriented MVNOs like Virgin Mobile USA a lot of problems.

3) Not owning the actual customer and just renting time from one of the big three will always be a major hurdle. Verizon or Sprint will never provide pricing to the MVNOs to allow them to compete with their own retail brands... they will let them get close but never ahead!

4) Data plans are gaining ground and traditional MVNOs have either not had a data type plan or did not have competitively priced plans in the past (most still don't even have the handsets to support it).

In the end I think we will see only a handful of well positioned players in the MVNO business who managed to overcome and address all of the above issues. I will even take it a step further and say that in 5 years we will not see any MVNOs left as those that managed to survive are bought out by the major players like Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile who will have no choice but to gobble up these companies to grow their subscriber base in a completely saturated market.

Time Is Running Out On Good Deals For The Vegas Prepaid Press EXPO!

Just another reminder for those last minute people like myself, if you don't start booking your flights, rooms and expo tickets soon for the tppExpo'08 in Vegas (August 19th to 21st), you will end up paying top dollar!!!

Don't worry it's not too late to still get some good deals....

Prepaid Press Expo Discounts Still Available:

• $25 Exhibit Hall - Use coupon code TPPEXHP at checkout
• 10% Discount on Conference Passes - Use coupon code TPPCONF at check out
• $50 Savings on Regular Price for a 1 Day Conference Pass if you book by August 15th
• $76 Savings on Regular Price for a full 3 Day Conference Pass if you book by August 15th

Hotel Deals on the Vegas Strip:

• Room at the Mirage from $72 a night (right next store to the Expo hotel Ceasars Palace)
• Room at Harrah's Casino wich comes with a $200 flight voucher for your next trip and some food vouchers
• Rooms at the Conference Expo Caesars Palace - Not sure how many are left but probably not many

Airfare Deals (Lately Not Much Savings on flights):

• Hotwire
• Orbitz

Hope you find some good deals and see you all in Vegas!!!!

The S Phone Card From Locus - Commercial

This is the first phone card commercial I have ever seen for Locus Telecommunications.

We Are Pleased To Introduce Our New Search By Suject Menu

You spoke and we listened.... Introducing our new search articles by subject menu in the left hand navigation of the site. Previously we used to just allow you to search by month but many people gave feedback that they could not find older stories of interest easily so we decided to categorize every post in here and help out the readers with this new search function.

So if you are just interested in what is going on in the prepaid mobile industry just click on that subject and you will find all of the news going back to 2005 when I started this blog. Or maybe you want to no more about the last few years of IDT... So please enjoy and hopefully you will spend hours here catching up on things you might have missed.

Thanks for all of your feedback!

IDT CEO Jim Courter Forced to Step Down As John McCain Fundraiser

Jim Courter the CEO of IDT Corporation was forced to step down this week as one of 21 campaign fundraisers due to the FCCs finding this past week that his company was guilty in violating communications guidelines for improper payments to foreign officials in return for preferential rates.

The violation in question dates back a couple of years and stems from an alleged preferential rate that IDT procured from Telco Haiti in which IDT got a preferred termination rate of $0.0875 into Haiti when the government of Haiti's mandated inbound rate was no less than $0.23 per minute. In exchange for the lower rate IDT paid into an offshore bank account that allegedly belonged to former corrupt president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Apparently $0.03 per minute of the $0.0875 went to Aristide and the rest to Telco Haiti (numbers form Portfolio.com).

The issue was outed in 2003 when former employee Michael Jewett, The Caribbean Sales Manager, brought suit against IDT for wrongful termination when he was fired for not wanting to go along with the deal.

The FCC finally acted last week after investigating the issue and fined IDT 1.3 million dollars for this violation. As a result of the news, McCain's camp quickly went into damage control mode and I imagine got Courter to step down. However, not before the press began having a field day with the issue! The issue got so much attention that it even made in into Comedy Central's Indecision 2008 web site. As the days go on more and more major press outlets like the NJ Star Ledger, Washington Post, and many more. A black eye for both McCain and for IDT!

SDI and Locus Join Forces to Gain Market Share in Texas

In a press release this week Locus announced that they have established a partnership with SDI to distribute "fair value" calling cards in the state of Texas. SDI who is located in NY has a strong presence in the Texas market and Locus, who is a Telecom provider from NJ, feels that together they should be able to gather a strong market presence.

The trend in prepaid lately has been delivering "clean cards" and together these two companies hope their new "clean card" will revolutionise the marketplace. "Competition in the market place, especially in Texas, is at its peak. Customers have lots of choices and very busy lifestyles. In order to differentiate ourselves we needed to create a unique partnership with a calling card company that is known for its reliability, competitive rates, clear connections and fair value in a calling card experience," states Sohel Kapadia, CEO of SDI.

The only details released are that the first card would be the Hot Dog card which would then be followed up by others.

Read the full press release here

CVT Peleador Calling Card Commercial

Here is another Spanish language phone card commercial by CVT Prepaid for the Peleador card.

Discounts for Prepaid Press Expo Expire Today!

I thought I would just post a friendly reminder for all of you who have not yet registered for the upcoming Prepaid Press Expo in Vegas (August 19th - 21st). Today is the last day to qualify for the free exhibit hall passes and the reduced rate full conference pass. Until 11:59 tonight the prices will be as follows:

• Exhibit Hall Pass Only = Free
• Full Conference Pass (gives access to seminars, show floor and the party) = $599 - 15% or 275 -15% for one day pass
• Toga Party Pass (gives access to party and show floor) = $99

After today the prices will go up to:

• Exhibit Hall Pass Only = $49 ($75 at the show)
• Full Conference Pass (gives access to seminars, show floor and the party) = $599 or $275 for one day pass
• Toga Party Pass (gives access to party and show floor) = $99 (stays the same)

So for all of you who were waiting or still trying to decide act now to save yourself some money and register online today!

Hispanic Institutes Study on US Prepaid Calling Cards

With all of the hooplah recently about the phone card business cheating it's customers, the Hispanic Institute recently conducted a study of over 45 different phone cards from various providers to see what the cards actually delivered and to verify the quality of the calls as well.The tests were performed between November 12 and December 8th of 2007 and the results reaffirmed what the press has been talking about. Most of the phone cards are failing to deliver the true number of advertised minutes.

Of the 45 cards tested, only 15 cards allowed the researchers to use the whole card balance and 6 fell to the opposite end of the spectrum giving 50% or less of the advertised minutes.

The Winners:

• IDT Boss-WSH Mexico - 100% of minutes delivered
• Telmex USA Companero Guatemala - 100% of minutes delivered
• GEO I Love NY Mexico - 100% of minutes delivered
• STI World Mexico - 100% of minutes delivered

The Loosers:

• Diamond Bingo Guatemala - 50% of minutes delivered
• GEO GEO Florida Guatemala - 50% of minutes delivered
• Lycatel Call Me Guatemala - 50% of minutes delivered
• RTG Cocktail Mexico - 20% of minutes delivered
• Touch-Tel USA La Salvadorena Mexico - 20% of minutes delivered
• Telmex Companero Mexico - 10% of minutes delivered

Granted this study also looked at things like call quality and PDD which on any given day can be different and affect the results, but for the most part this is the first published study that I am aware of that looks at this issue. Whatever the methodology used, this study emphasises one thing, the prepaid calling card industry needs to shape up!

The full report can be viewed at the Hispanic Institutes's web site

IDT Seems To Have Closure On Their Outstanding IRS Tax Issue

In a SEC filing last Monday, IDT disclosed that the IRS had sent a notice that they finalized their audit and have found that IDT owes about 76 million (not including interest). While this may sound like a lot of money, it is actually much less than IDT anticipated. In fact it was about 56 million less, with IDT having stated that they had established a reserve of about 132 million for this purpose.


What does all this mean you ask... Well it means that since IDT had already put aside this money they have just found themselves a nice cash reserve of about 50 million or so (remember they still have to calculate the interest). This is a huge win for the company and most likely should help their business out (50 million could help anybody out!).

FOX 13 Florida - News Coverage on The Florida Phone Card Settlement

Here is a news report from a local Fox affiliate in Florida about the recently announced settlement in Florida regarding prepaid phone cards.

TV News Report - Phone Card Regulations Proposed in California

Here is a TV news report from California discussing the problems with prepaid phone cards and the proposed bill regulating phone card companies (Proposed Bill AB2885).

June Poll Results: Who is Your Favorite Phone Card Provider

Now that our June poll is over I figured I would share the results with all of you. The question asked was "who is your favorite phone card provider" and in total we received 69 votes and here is how you ranked them:

STI 18 (26%)

Ibasis 3 (4%)

IDT 19 (27%)

Locus 6 (8%)

CVT Prepaid 23 (33%)

Just be aware that this survey was in no means scientific and users were allowed to vote more than once. Congratulations CVT for being the most popular with IDT coming in second and STI in finishing in third place.

Be sure to vote on the new July poll question: What is the next best type of product to be sold in the prepaid calling card channel?

Get Your Own Online Phone Card Store - Little to No Experience Required!

For many phone card distributors, selling online is an impossible task! You need to get a hosting server, register a domain, hire a web designer, purchase and install a shopping cart software, register for a merchant account and then hire customer service agents to handle all of the issues. Most likely some of you have though about opening up an online store but get scared away by all of the work! Well don't worry, I have a quick and easy solution for you to get your very own online phone card store up an running with none of the headaches and very little work!

Vtel Phone Cards offers a virtual phone card store where you can register your own domain and start selling phone cards with your brand and your name. How it works is simple:

1) Register at Vtel Phone Cards
2) Choose your stores name and register your own domain name
3) Pick from one of over a dozen off the shelf store templates or customize with your own HTML (requires some web design experience).
4) Drive customers to your site
5) Earn a commission on every sale for the life of that customer (ranges from 8 to 13%)

Best of all you don't have to worry about any of the day to day management issues like order fulfilment, credit card processing, fraud control or customer service... it's all done for you! All you do is drive traffic to your site to get sales and watch the money roll in!

Once you reach $50 in earnings you can request payment by either a check or via PayPal! I know of some people making well over $2,500 a month with this program!

Check it out now and be sure to sign up!

Goool Calling Card Commerical - IDT

Here is a commercial for the Goool phone card from IDT.

IDT Corporation Chairman Howard Jonas Addresses Shareholders

With all of the recent bad news and rapidly declining stock prices, IDT Chairman Howard Jonas decided to have a conference call on Thursday to address many of the issues and declare that the company is poised to be profitable in the near future, a feat that they have not been able to accomplish in more than 14 years. The call itself seemed to have two purposes, one explain how and why they were heading towards being in the "black" and two allowing the Chairman to tout his new and prized possession, the Shale oil company AMSO.

The companies Telecom unit is in the process of performing a lot of cost cutting measures which should help it reflect the smaller pie which is the phone card business. This was the first time that I know of that IDT admitted that the phone card business decline was not just a temporary thing but an overall shift downwards in the market. They still blamed the unfair practices a little but seemed to imply that they feel the business is now close to stabilized and should not be declining any further... Being that IDT was the lead on the "cleaning up the phone card business" maybe this means that we will see a reduction in state and federal government investigations into these businesses??

Jonas also sounded optimistic that a key deal with "one of the largest telecom providers" could be likely and if that deal goes through should make IDT into one of "the leading terminator of international calls and leading seller prepaid products" in the world. While Jonas stressed that this deal was in no way certain, just by them talking about it, might suggest that the company feels strongly that the deal has a good possibility (otherwise why get people's hopes up...).

Other topics of the call included Zedge, their food company, and of course AMSO Shale Oil... a subject that dominated the call but being that this is a telecom blog, I will leave this topic alone. If you would like to read the unofficial transcript to this call you can view it on the Silicon Investor blog.

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

Phone Card Commercial Web Site

Ever since I started this blog years ago, I have been posting phone card tv commercials and I have always received a tremendous response. As a result of all of your feedback requesting more of these videos, I have decided to create a web page with all of the phone card tv commercials I could find.

I didn't want to place them all here on the blog as it would ruin the readability of the site so I created a squidoo page with all of the videos. In total there are close to 60 phone card commercials on the new site, mostly Spanish language ones and mostly US commercials with a few international ones sprinkled in where I saw fit.

So for all you phone card marketing people... enjoy the new site:
http://www.squidoo.com/phonecardcommercials

Los Temerarios Calling Card Commercial - CVT

Here is a Spanish language TV commercial for the Los Tererarios phone card by CVT.

Florida Attorney General and Phone Card Companies Reach a Settlement

I reported back in August of last year that the Florida Attorney General's office was investigating numerous prepaid phone card providers for false and deceptive advertising. Well the issue has finally been settled, with the companies involved (IDT, UTA, Total Call, Dollar Phone, CVT Prepaid, Cristel, and Alternatel) all agreeing to stop the deceptive practices.

As part of the settlement, the phone card companies will be required to deliver the minutes advertised on their cards and fully disclose any fees in the language of which the product is advertised. They also have to make the fee disclosure more prominent on the store point of sale materials and will be subject to close monitoring for the next 3 years. Also as part of the agreement the companies will need to repay the Florida Attorney General's office the more than 1 million dollars it cost them to investigate this issue. Not sure how the payments will be divided up between the companies but it will most likely be an even split.

While their have been many investigations launched recently by government agencies, this is the first one that I know of that has been settled!

You can read the full article here

CVT Pushing Los Temerarios Phone Card

Just got an email from CVT yesterday pushing their new phone card featuring Adolfo and Gustavo Angel from Los Temerarios the popular Mexican musical group. Here is the ad:

Cordia Communications Aquires Phone Card Distributor TSI Prepaid LLC

Cordia Communications (OTCBB: CORG), a company I have never heard of before in my life, announced last week that its subsidiary, Cordia Prepaid Corp., has completed an asset purchase agreement of Florida based TSI Prepaid LLC. Details of the deal were not made available but Cordia hopes that this acquisition will lead them to being a major player in the retail telecommunications distribution business. Revenues of TSI Prepaid are said to have been in the area of $90,000,000 annually reaching over 7,000 retail outlets. TSI president Mohammed Markatia will join as the President and CEO of its new business unit, Cordia Prepaid Corp. and be joined by former PT1 founder and president Peter M. Vita who will head up the Cordia Advanced Product Services division.

Being that this is more of an asset aquisition it leads me to think that this deal might be more related to poor finances on one of the companies part, with one company owing the other monies that it could in no way pay back... Kind of like the Telstar aquisition of Clifton Digital years back. I am hoping it is not because TSI Prepaid has been around a long time and has always been a market leader and a straight up operator. I wish them all the best of luck!

Cordia Communications currently offers VOIP, international DIDs and wireline communications solutions through it's numerous subsidiaries here in the US and abroad. More info on Cordia Communications can be found on it's web site: http://www.cordiacorp.com/ and more on TSI Prepaid LLC can be found on their web site http://www.tsiprepaid.com/.

Ketchup Phone Card Pruebala Ya!

In keeping with the food theme of phone cards here is a Spanish language prepaid phone card commercial for the Ketchup phone card! Just like the Hamburger phone card this one is diecut in the shape of a Ketchup bottle.

Verizon Wireless to Acquire Alltel

I know this is not exactly prepaid news but it is a big enough deal in the overall US telecom world to deserve mention here!

Verzion Wireless, after 2 years of toying around with the idea, has agreed to acquire Alltel for $5.9 billion in cash as well as assuming $22.2 billion of their debt. This deal, when closed, will make Verizon Wireless the largest mobile provider in the US overtaking the current top spot from at&t. Alltel currently has 13.2 million customers and Verizon has about 66.8 million which will bring the total to 80 million subs just slightly ahead of at&ts 72 million subscribers. The merger should not yield the same problems that the Sprint/Nextel deal did since both companies use the CDMA (code division multiple access) cellular technology, so integrating the networks should not be a huge issue.

Regulators in the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission will still need to review and approve this deal and if approved the deal should mostly complete by December of this year.

Boost Mobile Introduces New Rugged Phone - i335

Motorola i335 Phone with Walkie Talkie

Boost mobile, Sprint's prepaid cellular phone division, has just introduced a cool new phone into their product line that can take a huge licking and keep on ticking! The phone is the Motorola I335 walkie talkie phone that is called"military grade." In one of their promo videos for the new device, they show this phone being dropped off a roof, run over by a car, kicked and thrown. It is sure to be a hit with Boost's typical male 25 and under market segment who always seem to abuse their phones the most. It is a phone for an active person on the go and accident prone!

The phone is now available at all retail outlets that sell Boost mobile and online at http://www.boostmobile.com/. The i335 retails for $59.99 online and is only available in the color pictured to the left. This phone is now expected to become one of Boost's biggest sellers!

IDT Announces Third Quarter Results and They Are Not Good!

Prepaid phone card giant IDT made public their third quarter results yesterday and the news was not good, an 82 million dollar loss for the quarter, up from last quarters 60 million dollar loss. To get an idea of how bad this really is, last years third quarter results only had losses of around 15 million. Revenue also fell a more modest 7% to $453.2 million from $485.4 million.

From the transcript of the earnings call you can see that IDT has a clear strategic goal of reducing company overhead (which usually means layoffs), dumping many of their unprofitable businesses either through sale or through plain discontinuation and finally pursuing their recent investment opportunities in business like Zedge, Shale Oil and a few others which they believe are going to be viable entities. Here is a quote from Jim Courter:

"The direction of that line is functional with and consists of four basic strategies: one, selling, spinning off, or shutting down nearly all businesses that won’t help us meet our goal; two, reducing our corporate overhead; three, streamlining our core businesses; and four, making modest investments in very limited number of closely managed opportunities."

As far as calling cards go, IDT continued to blame their shortcomings in this field on the unfair practices of many of their competitors but hinted that they are closer to a level playing field now with all of the recent actions taken by the FTC.

The biggest kicker on the whole earnings statement was the 10 million that contributed to the loss for Executive severance packages. IDT was recently cited in some online circles for having instituted some of the most excessively high severance packages in recent years for a business of it's size.

Golden parachutes aside, the results from this quarter can't get much worse! In the coming months I am sure that many layoffs will come, operational improvements will be made and some assets sold off. So in all I am labeling this as the ultimate crossroads for IDT, they either turn the corner now or risk being too far gone to right the ship! It will be a challenge but 100% possible.

Here is a link to the IDT earnings call transcript and the financial statement for Q3 08.

Hamburger Phone Card Commercial

Here is a commercial for the Hamburger phone card. The card is even die cut in the shape of a hamburger!

FTC Stikes Again: Ordering More Companies to Halt Deceptive Advertising

The FTC got the US District Court of Miami to issue a temporary injunction against the deceptive advertising used by Alternatel, G.FG. Enterprises (d/b/a Mystic Prepaid), Voice Prepaid, Voice Distributors, and Telecom Express. The FTC alleges that these companies advertise more minutes than they deliver and knowingly rip off the consumers.

The FTC tested a total of 83 cards from the above mentioned companies and on average delivered only 50% of the advertised minutes. Some of the cards named in this case are “Aló Mamá,” “Coffee Time,” “Rey de Florida,” “Tree Monkey,” and “Voz do Brasil.” One of the cards tested only delivered 23 minutes to Panama out of an advertised 360 minutes.

The agency is also seeking for the companies to provide restitution to those consumers who were ripped off or at least be forced to give up some of their gains received due to these practices. The matter will be brought to trial some time in the near future.

Judging by the slew of recent movement against prepaid cards by various government agencies, I think this business is high on the radar screen and we will be seeing a lot more actions country wide. Don't be surprised if your company is targeted next! The mandate is clear... clean up your business or you will be in for a tough ride!

To read the full details of the FTC ruling got to the FTC Website.

Current Telecom Job Openings - June 2nd 2008

In an effort to help out those in the Telecom industry I thought I would start a new service by posting current job openings at various US prepaid Telecom companies:

IDT Current Openings:

Patent Attorney - Newark NJ (posted May 6th)
Account Manager/Outside Sales - Newark NJ (posted April 25th)
Financial Analyst - Newark NJ (posted April 15th)
Senior Product Manager - Newark, NJ (reposted April 18th)
Graphic Designer - Newark, NJ (reposted April 18th)
GUI Developer - Newark, NJ (reposted April 18th)
Site Manager - Newark, NJ (reposted April 18th)
Jr. Product Specialist - Newark NJ (posted March 12th)

Locus Telecommunications, Inc. Current Openings:

Customer Service Rep - Englewood Cliffs, NJ (reposted May 9th)
Sales Manager - Englewood Cliffs, NJ (reposted May 6th)
Graphic Designer - Englewood Cliffs, NJ (reposted May 9th)
Web Services Coordinator - Englewood Cliffs, NJ (reposted May 5th)

Virgin Mobile, USA Current Openings:

Handset Test Engineer - Walnut Creek, CA (posted April 8th)
Mobile Device Manager - Walnut Creek, CA (posted April 8th)
Service Performance Analyst - Walnut Creek, CA (posted April 8th)
Chargeback Analyst - Warren, NJ (posted May 13th)
Program Manager - Warren, NJ (posted April 8th)
Product Manager Voice Offers - Warren, NJ (posted April 8th)
Director, Business Financial Planning - Warren, NJ (posted April 8th)
Tier II customer Care Advisor - Warren, NJ (posted May 6th)
Marketing Writer - Warren, NJ (posted April 8th)
Senior Accountant - Warren, NJ (posted April 8th)
Interactive Marketing Manager - Warren, NJ (posted April 8th)
Project Manager Customer Care Systems - Warren, NJ (posted April 21st)
Customer Care Specialist - Warren, NJ (posted May 23rd)
Inventory Accountant - Warren, NJ (posted May 30th)

Boost Mobile Current Openings:

Operations Release Program/Project Manager - Irvine, CA (posted May 5th)
Sr. Project Manager Operations Management - Irvine, CA (posted May 5th)

Ibasis Current Openings:

Senior staff Accountant - Burlington, MA (posted May 28th)

Nobeltel Current Openings

Collections Representative - Unkown Location
Web Marketing Specialist - Uknown Location
Customer Service Representative - Unknown Location
Routing Operator - Unkown Location
Senior Software Engineer Java - Unkown Location
Junior Accountant - Unkown Location

STI Prepaid Current Openings:

Product Manager - New York, NY (posted May 28th)

I tried to find job openings in other companies like 9278, Blackstone, Total Call International, Excite Telecom, and more but those companies do not seem to actively promote their openings on their web sites or through online Job engines like Monster or HotJobs. If anyone know of a job opening or company they would like to include in the future please drop me an email or post a comment below.

Virgin Mobile USA Releases Special Edition Phone

In a really cool marketing idea Virgin Mobile has created a special edition version of the Wild Card phone by Kyocera that will give those who own one special VIP access at the upcoming Virgin Mobile Festival (http://www.virginmobilefestival.com/) on August 9-10 in Baltimore Maryland. Performers at this show will include: Bob Dylan, Foo Fighters, Kanye West, Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots and more.

In total there will be roughly about 15,000 of these special edition Wild Card phones available exclusively through all US Best Buy locations. This move will surely be a hit with their target demographic of teens and young adults and I don't doubt that they will sell all of these phones before the August concert.

La Chulita Calling Card Commercial

Here is a phone card commercial for the Chulita card from STI.