Phone Plus Prepaid: Public Cell Phone Service 'Corners' Market in Bolivia

Posted: 12/2002

industry news

Public Cell Phone Service
‘Corners’ Market in Bolivia

By Geraldine Besgrove

Hanging around on street corners has
taken on a new twist in many of Bolivia’s towns and cities. Students wearing
fluorescent, logo-emblazoned waistcoats are offering passersby the use of a cell
phone for 14 cents per minute for a national call.

Cheap call rates available in bulk,
prepaid packages have enabled entrepreneurs to buy cell time and resell it at a
30 percent markup. The public demand for the service is high. Isaac Toro, owner
of upstart company Punto Movil, explains, "I have 30 students working for
me, each one selling on average 150 calls a day."

Toro claims to buy the same number
of prepaid calls in a day that the cell phone companies sell in a week.

"We are losing money to the
street operators," confirms Marcelo Aleman, marketing coordinator of
wireless company Viva, which is partly owned by Western Wireless International
Corp. "We’re starting to put a barrier place, we’ve found a way to stop
this."

The company has set up an
investigation unit to identify customers offering street cell phone services.

"SITTEL [the regulator] is not
controlling the street cell phones, so we have to do it ourselves," says
Aleman.

Todito.com Launches Todito –
ePaid

Todito.com, an Internet portal, ISP
and virtual marketplace for North American Spanish-speakers, has launched Todito
– ePaid service, which allows customers to create prepaid, stored-value accounts
for online shopping.

Todito – ePaid allows customers to
open a prepaid account and deposit funds at 1,800 Banco Bital branches in Mexico
or 40,000 collection points in the United States. Deposited funds then can be
used at 50 Mexico-based stores in Todito’s virtual mall, and at U.S. e-commerce
sites.

Todito – ePaid users also can send
funds to other Todito – ePaid accounts, transfer money to any bank account in
Mexico and make cash withdrawals at any Scotiabank Invertal branch without
having a bank account.

Qxpress Terminals Support Prepaid
Mastercard

Q Comm International Inc. has signed
an agreement with Next Estate Communications Inc. to enable the Next Estate
prepaid Truth MasterCard card package to be purchased at retailers using Q
Comm’s Qxpress point-of-sale activation (PoSA) terminals.

Buyers receive a unique code and
call Next Estate to register for their Virtual MasterCard account. Once the
account has been set up and activated, Next Estate allows customers to use the
Virtual MasterCard account immediately for online purchases, and then sends
customers their physical card in the mail, if requested. Once they’ve used their
initial balance on the card, customers simply return to any retailer that sells
the Truth package to add more money to it. Initial sale and reload denominations
are $20, $50, $100, $200 and $400. The Truth MasterCard is accepted at more than
28 million locations worldwide.

New Telemac Patent Covers Remote
Programming of Wireless Devices

Telemac Corp. was awarded its 28th
patent (no. 6,424,827 B1) for a system for secure, remote programming of
wireless devices. The system covers a wider range of communications methods,
including over-the-air communication, and more secure generation of the
encryption key within the wireless device. Telemac received its first U.S.
patent for its intelligent telephone technology in 1994. Telemac now has more
than 75 patents and patents pending for its systems and related wireless
technologies in more than 30 countries. Nearly 14 million Telemac-enabled mobile
phones with patented technology have been sold worldwide.

Bill-paying Habits May Point to
Increased Prepaid Wireless Use

A study conducted by Western Union
Financial Services Inc., found 43 percent of people pay their wireless phone
bill late. Eliminating wireless phone service contracts by using prepaid service
appeals to one-third of current users (34 percent).

In conjunction with Opinion Research
Corp. International, Western Union SwiftPay service conducted a survey of 1,016
Americans on bill-paying habits. The bill most likely to be paid late is the
utility bill, followed by wireless service, then credit cards.

Ninety-six percent of Americans
recognize that paying bills late can potentially affect their personal credit
ratings, yet 25 percent report paying at least one bill late each month.
Forty-two percent of respondents open to prepayment indicate that using a
prepaid wireless service would help them better manage their budget. Those most
interested in managing budgets are 18-24 years of age (54 percent).

A recent Yankee Group Inc. study
said approximately 12 percent of all wireless subscribers were prepaid. By the
end of 2006, it predicts that figure will grow to exceed 30 percent.

Dancris Prepaid Cards Aid Phoenix
Coyotes Charity

Dancris
Telecom LLC will use prepaid cards to raise money for the Phoenix Coyotes hockey
team’s charity organization, Coyotes Charities, as part of an agreement to
become the exclusive provider of telecom service for team.

As
a corporate sponsor for the 2002-2003 NHL season, Scottsdale, Ariz.-based
Dancris will provide travel cards, domestic and international long-distance and
Internet services to management, players and employees, and will partner with
the team’s business arm, Coyotes Hockey LLC, in various community programs.

Dancris will sell long distance and
a special Coyotes prepaid calling card via its Web site, which will be linked
from the Coyotes home page. A percentage of all customer usage will go to the
Coyotes Charities. To help promote the services, Dancris is giving away Coyotes
T-Shirts with the prepaid cards.

SportsTicker, Atlas Team for SMS
MultiSports Cards

SportsTicker
Enterprises has agreed to provide in-progress score updates, leaderboards,
schedules and other sports information for SMS MultiSports Cards, offered by
Atlas Telecom Mobile (ATM), a short message service carrier and content
aggregator.

The cards allow sports fans to
follow their favorite teams directly on their mobile phones through SMS text
messaging, and can be purchased online at www.smscardsonline.com.

SportsTicker delivers instant
scores, breaking sports news, statistics, previews, recaps and features,
gathered by more than 850 event-site reporters from media outlets throughout the
United States, Canada, Europe, South America and Japan.

Walgreens Offers AT&T Prepaid
Internet

AT&T
Corp.’s prepaid Internet service is now available in Walgreen Co.’s 3,900 stores
across the United States.

"Walgreens customers can now
pick up an AT&T PrePaid Internet Service start-up kit along with the other
household electronics products we offer," said Gary Platek, Walgreens
divisional merchandise manager for electronics.

Walgreens is the nation’s largest
drugstore chain, with fiscal 2002 sales of $28.7 billion and stores in 43 states
and Puerto Rico.

The AT&T PrePaid Internet
Service, introduced last year, is a pay-as-you-go Internet service that comes
with one e-mail account. The company says it is perfect for consumers who want
to access the Web without a monthly fee, need on-the-road Internet access or
want a back-up service.

The service CD is available as eight
hours of Internet for $9.99, or 20 hours for $19.99. Additional minutes can be
purchased online for $19.99 (20 hours) or $29.99 (30 hours).

Sprint, eBay to Sell Prepaid
Products Online

Sprint Corp. and eBay Inc. have
combined efforts to sell Sprint prepaid phone cards. Consumers can shop for
long-distance prepaid cards in the new Sprint Prepaid PhoneCard Store, located
online at www.ebay.com. eBay shoppers will be
able to choose from two different denominations, with rates as low as 4.2 cents
per domestic minute. Sprint has chosen marketplace management provider
ChannelAdvisor Corp. to develop and manage the Sprint Prepaid PhoneCard Store on
eBay.

This is not the first time Sprint
and eBay have worked together. Late last year, the two companies announced that
eBay would begin using Sprint E|Solutions Centers to expand eBay’s Web hosting
facilities.

GPA Offers Money-back Guarantee

Global Prepaid Alliance Inc. (GPA)
has unveiled a 100 percent money-back guarantee for every GPA prepaid calling
card. Any consumer can request a refund if they are not satisfied with any
prepaid phone card with the GPA logo. The company says GPA distributors and
retailers expect the policy to make customers feel more satisfied with card
purchases, thereby creating brand loyalty. "This results in total customer
gratification and higher sales for GPA distributors because GPA stands behind
their product with this real money-back guarantee," according to a GPA
statement.