Here is the Sprint Rate table for the Oblio Tel 24/7 phone card (twenty four seven 24/7): see the Sprint Rate Tables below
I am getting so many questions from people on the 24/7 rate changes on the Oblio tel 24-7 that I decided to post this link separately.

Oblio Tel used to use Smartalk for all of their phone cards, but they have moved almost everything to Sprint. Not sure why... I think it hurts the Oblio Tel image. My guess is that Smartalk may have decided to get out of the phone card business altogether. In any case, it was always annoying that neither smartalk or Obliotel would stand behind these products when they would expire. I have personally lost thousands of dollars by doing business with OblioTel, because I pay good green money to buy their cards, and when they expire, Obliotel offers no refund or credit for the dead product.

Tienlen - vietnam & Tawag Ngayon Philippines

I really like the phone cards that are specific to just one or two countries. The Tienlen phone card is an excellent new Vietnam calling card issued by ILDS. Tienlen phonecard is advertising 70 minutes to Vietnam on the $5 and 50 minutes to Vietnam mobile. Tienlen also advertises to Cambodia, Indonesia, Korea, Laos, Thailand.

Another new phone card from Ibasis is called Tawag Ngayon and is intended for Philippines with 66 minutes to Philippines land, 56 philippines mobile, and good minutes for Laos Vietnam, Burma (15 minutes) , Nepal , and China.

By the way... I am looking to add several of the best phone cards to Burma (also known by the correct name Myanmar). If you know of any Myanmar calling cards that you sell, or have used, please contact me. We have a growing Burmese community in Ohio, and the surrounding states, and I would like to have good quality Burma phone cards. The Africa Smile phone card used to me good for Burma, but I think it has fallen by the wayside.
Bob
216-524-9292

Jalapeno Habanero phone card - Cristel Telecom

Just got off the phone with Cristel Telecom regarding their newest latino phone card called Jalapeno Habanero. The Jalapeno calling card has only been on the market for a few weeks. The poster shows it to be good for El Salvador, Guatemala, Domican Republic, Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Colmbia and Venezuela.

You can see their poster at www.phonecardhotline.com/posters/posterlist.asp

Here is the good news... Meg says that Jalapeno is also doing very well for Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Philippines. Let's hope this one holds its minutes a bit longer than most of the Cristel Telecom phone cards. I am told that it will.

UTA to take on STI

Well this is an exiting bit gossip... UTA is determined that they are no longer take STI's market share grab sitting now. UTA will announce a number of new "free" phone cards to be released within a couple of days. While it is commonly believed that STI is losing tons of money by selling phone cards with free minutes... their idea seems to be to capture market share and increase total sales in order to make the company more attractive to potential buyers. Union Telecard Alliance (UTA) sees their entry into the "free" phone card arena as an investment of several million dollars to protect market share, rather than as losing money.

This sounds like good news for distributors who want to spread their risk.

The Latino Americana Ohio/Kentucky phone card to be released next week, will have free minutes to the Golden Triangle in Mexico, including Mexico City, Monterrey, and Guadalahara and Pueblo. The rest of Mexico will have 460 minutes on the $5 international phone card In additon Latino Americana phone card will have more minutes than any other card according to UTA representative. Featured Latino countries are Honduras (49 minutes on the $5), El Salvador (115 minutes on $5), Guatemala (95 minutes on $5). In addition, this news Union Telecard phone card for south america ann central america phone card, will be good for Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela.

At the same time UTA pre-announced a new phone card called Entrix Midwest phone card. The Entrix Midwest calling card will be good for all of the countries not specifically targeted by Latino Americana. The actual rates for Entrix Midwest have not been announced yet, but it is expected to target Senegal, Nigeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq in the arab world. Entix Midwest will also traget India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Poland, Ukraine.

These new cards will be complimented with similar additions to the UTA phone card portfolio in other regions. The Entrix Latina Americana Ohio/Kentucky will be released for exclusive distributon by Phone Card Hotline (216-524-9292) www.phonecardhotline.com in northeast ohio (cleveland), and by Consolidated in Cincinatti area, and by two Columbus Ohio distributors.

Increase sales now - know your important countries

Typically when you purchase phone cards as a wholesaler, or when you go out ot make a private label phone card, the master distributor, or phone card issuer always asks which are your most important countries.

If you are like most distributors, or store owners; you already have some idea of which are your most important countries in your local area. Do you know each country that is represented in your neighborhood, and which has the greatest population. If you knew the answer to this question, you could get specific phone cards just for those countries.

We are now offering a service to answer that very question. How many people from each country live in my zip code. If you are a regular wholesale customer of phone card hotline, just give us your zip code, and we will give you a complete report for free. If you are not a wholesale customer, then you can still order a report that will tell you how many people from each country are in your zip code. If you more more extensive analysis, just let us know.

For example, let's say you have a great phone card for Honduras or Ukraine, and you want to distribute it nation wide. We can give you the nationwide demographics for Honduras any way you want it. For example: What are the top 10 states, what are the top 10 cities, what are the top 10 zip codes.

Our reports are based upon an extensive analysis of the US Census data and counts the number of people who have immigrated to the United States. Please let me know if you need further information. Phone Card distributors dont really care about how many people live in the United States with Polish ancestry for example. Because calling home drops off considerably after 15 years, and almost totally after the 1st generation. We tell you only about Foreign Born residents of the United States and where they live.

Bob Collett
Phone Card Hotline
216-524-9292

STI update

This story gets more scary every day. The talk of the phone card trade show sponsored by Intellecard News was STI. For some time rumors have been floating around that STI is in trouble. Several sources advised me that they are not buying anything from STI direct... thinking that if they buy from a middle man, then they might be insulated from what many think is an inevitable downfall of STI.

One of my contacts told me that this is no longer a rumor... that STI is more than $80 million in debt, and that unless IDT or someone else buys them, they will probably not last much longer.

You might ask what is is behind this? An unprecidented number of phone card companies from the largest to the smallest are now buying private label phone cards from STI. many offer incredible minutes. Anyone who knows what minutes actually cost, also knows that these phone cards can be profitable or even breaking even. So the more STI sells, the more they loose.

Here is the crazy thing. I have learned that other phone card companies such as Union Telecard are preparing to roll out their version of the free phone card to protect market share.

The only question is who will get stuck with the old maid.

STI World - charged for incompleted calls

Comment:
I purchased two STI World phone cards from your company. The first one worked fair enough but the second one was just a rip off. It took all my credits without being connected. I was explained that the ringing was over one minute every time i tried to be connected. (which i didn't know about) but that wasn't true
I would appreciate any help.
Thanks,Adam

Dear Adam:
All phone cards today use voip technology for at least some of thier minutes. Without use of VOIP technology, phone cards would not be able to be competitive. Unfortunately, many of the voip providers are small time operators, which provide low cost, but use equipment that does not have answerback supervision. This means that the calling card equipment does not know if a call is connected. The work-around solution for the calling card issuer is to set a timer, and assume that after a certain amount of time, the call most likely has been connected. Logically, most people would not let a phone ring 50 times... they would assume that after a few rings, nobody is going to answer. Actually, the calling card issuer, encurs most of the cost, even if nobody answers the phone. This is why you are advised never to let the phone ring more than a 4 or 5 rings... or else you will be charged.
I recommend you call STI World customer service again, and explain why you let it ring so long(if you did), let them know that your calls were never connected and politely ask them to reinstate the time on your phone card.

If this does not work, let me know, and I will replace your STI World phone card with another. Let me know which country you were calling.BC

Sprint Prepaid Calling Cards - rates, terms, conditions

I found a list of all of the rates, terms and conditions for all of the prepaid phone cards for which Sprint is the carrier. The carrier is the name at the bottom of the phone card which ususally says "service provided by..."

This table of Sprint rates is very useful. For example, Oblio tell is moving or has already moved most of their famous phone cards from Smartalk over to Sprint. The Oblio Tel website www.obliotel.com no longer includes any of the rates for the phone cards they issue. I have a list of links to every rate table (more than 100) for every sprint phone card, but I removed them because Blogger suggested it made my blog look like spam. Leave a comment if you are looking for any Sprint rate tables, and I will publish them.

24/7 phone card - oblio tel - sprint - palestine

I have recieved a number of complaints lately because the 24-7 phone card advertises 500 minutes to Israel, but only gives 18 minutes to Palestine 972. Customers tell me that this phone card previously gave the same minutes to Palestine as the rest of Israel, but Oblio tel representatives advise me that twenty four seven phone card always gave less minutes to Palestine.

Honduras Tren

The Honduras Tren calling card (Honduras Train) is a new phone card for calling Honduras. the poster advertises 50 minutes to Honduras for $5 and 150 minutes to Mexico. The carrier is listed as Qworx. Phone Card Hotline just started selling Honduras Tren a few weeks ago, and it is doing very well. I only have a few stores in The Cleveland area with Honduran customers, but they are going crazy for this card.

My customers tell me that new customers are coming into their bakery, money wire service, and grocery store just to buy this card. They are actually getting new customers because of a phone card. That's good news.