[asterisk-biz] calling card business

[Nir Simionovich]

I guess that in some retrospective. the traditional calling card business is
dead - however, new services such as PokeTalk.Com, 012Global and others
introduce a new spin to this highly traditional market.

The introduction of Dual and Tripe IMSI SIM cards had spun a totally new
breed of calling card, a SIM bound one - one that no longer requires the
printing of cards, but is now bound to an electronic element.

In some form, I guess the business will never really die - it will simply
morph into a new one.

My company caters to 6 different calling card operators, each one doing its
own thing. We've developed a highly versatile and robust
calling-card/prepaid/postpaid/IVR development framework, which our customers
utilize to build these systems using Asterisk. Some of these are racking up
to 800 concurrent calls at any given time of the day - which means, around
35 million minutes a month catered using Asterisk.

Nir S


On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 10:17 PM, Dan Miller <dan.miller at gmail.com> wrote:

> I haven't sized the market lately and was primarily North American focused
> when I did.
>
> It appears that there are lively country pairs for calls originating from
> urban areas in the U.S. (to Latin America, South America, Carribean, Middle
> East)
>
> Can't speak to call volumes because we haven't systematically gathered info
> lately.
>
> There will always be a baseline of voice traffic over public networks, but
> it does seem like Skype, Trufone.... other softphone based approaches would
> choke off more expensive alternatives once people get low price (of shared),
> connected PCs.
>
> Dan
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 7:23 AM, Alex Balashov <abalashov at evaristesys.com>wrote:
>
>> IP is compelling for access, but the carrier world is still firmly TDM.
>>  That, and IP just isn't as reliable at this point.
>>
>> When someone offers a cheap TDM switch, I get intrigued.
>>
>> David Knell wrote:
>>
>> > It's not dead; it's merely changed.
>> >
>> > Last time I bought a TDM switch, I paid about US$150,000 for 64E1s - so
>> > it'd switch about 1000 calls.  Several years later, we run that traffic
>> > volume and more through two commodity Dell servers which, with
>> > bandwidth, cost us about $250/month.  And it takes a few hours to hook
>> > up to a new carrier, rather than weeks or months in the TDM world.  So
>> > it's no wonder that there's a lot of TDM equipment coming onto the
>> > market; IP is too compelling.
>> >
>> > There is also a lot of activity around cellphones - for example, a
>> > couple of the UK calling card companies have launched MVNOs with an
>> > emphasis on cheap international calling (such as Lycatel with
>> > Lycamobile), selling SIMs through their existing distribution, and
>> > existing carriers are starting to offer cheap international calling
>> > packages, both to postpaid and prepaid customers.
>> >
>> > Question back at you - what do you say when someone asks if you can sell
>> > their TDM switch?
>> >
>> > --Dave
>> >
>> >> is it dead? i have many people e-mailing me asking if I can sell their
>> >> switches (NACT, DTI, Excel) I also know from last year the intelecard
>> >> show was a bust...so what do you guys think? are we all just heading
>> >> to mobile phones and unified communications? what about the people
>> >> that have credit issues? prepaid cell phones?
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Thank you,
>> >>
>> >> -Wes-
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> --Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com--
>> >>
>> >> AstriCon 2009 - October 13 - 15 Phoenix, Arizona
>> >> Register Now: http://www.astricon.net
>> >>
>> >> asterisk-biz mailing list
>> >> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
>> >>    http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz
>>
>>
>> --
>> Alex Balashov - Principal
>> Evariste Systems
>> Web     : http://www.evaristesys.com/
>> Tel     : (+1) (678) 954-0670
>> Direct  : (+1) (678) 954-0671
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> --Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com--
>>
>> AstriCon 2009 - October 13 - 15 Phoenix, Arizona
>> Register Now: http://www.astricon.net
>>
>> asterisk-biz mailing list
>> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
>>   http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> --Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com--
>
> AstriCon 2009 - October 13 - 15 Phoenix, Arizona
> Register Now: http://www.astricon.net
>
> asterisk-biz mailing list
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
>   http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-biz/attachments/20090921/670dc1c2/attachment-0001.htm