For what it's worth, I would echo the thoughts of Steve and Praveen
insofar as to express scepticism about the prospectus for a calling
card company at this point. The obstacles aren't really technical in
nature; the platform problem can be solved many different ways and
the solutions are well-understood. However, there are financial
hurdles in that if you intend to do it right, you need real capital,
as Steve said. But the real problem really does lie in the marketing
and actually getting the business. It's really hard, and you're going
up against an extremely saturated market with some deep-pocketed
competitors.
On the other hand, if you do have a very specific business plan in
mind, I wouldn't say it's a complete non-starter. There are
demographic segments of the population that are very attached to phone
cards by force of custom and habit; first-generation immigrants come
to mind, as well as older people who take a dim view of online
purchasing due to concerns about credit card fraud and so on. The
other upshot is that these people don't tend to be exceptionally
price-sensitive; your prices will have to compare favourably to your
most visible competitors in the particular markets in question, but
aside from that, it's not (yet?) the most brutal, acute race to the
bottom playing out in the VoIP arena as far as I can tell.
It is possible to identify, reach and effectively market to such
people, and it is important to remember that the audience of this list
and like-minded communities is not representative of the general
population.
The biggest problem with getting anyone to invest in and/or fund it is
that it is by definition a declining market, at least in view of the
aforementioned marketing orientation. Calling cards are used by
people who are reticent toward, ignorant of or unable to afford
Skype[1], other VoIP options such as Vonage, traditional PIC'd
long-distance offerings, etc. This is understood to be a shrinking
segment of the population, as the adoption and lifecycle of the more
contemporary options progresses into further stages of maturity.
Would you invest in my company if I told you I was going to
mass-market to a shrinking and non-renewing market?
Others here who are actually in the international termination business
can comment more effectively than I on the cost burdens and margin
picture of particular routes to particular places. There is no doubt
that as with everything in the VoIP cottage industry, the margins
arising from arbitrage opportunities and pure resale plays are rapidly
shrinking.
Honestly, I'm torn:
On the one hand, ideologically I want to concur with the people saying
there is yet a good opportunity for a high-quality, high-value
offering with good support and execution. I mean, sure, in principle,
the last thing we need is another "VoIP + ? = $$ PROFIT! $$" basement
operation from a machine on a residential DSL circuit draped in dirty
laundry selling shit grey routes full of FAS and transported over
latent, unreliable links using G.729A. We've got plenty of those
around here.
On the other hand, the rather bureaucratically heavy-handed[2] and
capital-intensive angle from which you seem to be coming at the
problem prompts the inevitable gut reaction that you're a bit late to
the party for that. Some sort of realistic concession to reality on
the cost factors and time to market is almost certainly necessary if
you want to try this.
Most importantly, though, have a really, really good idea of exactly
who you're going to sell to, and bet the farm on it.
-- Alex
[1] Not Skype itself, of course, but computers and quality broadband
service.
--
Alex Balashov - Principal
Evariste Systems LLC
260 Peachtree Street NW
Suite 2200
Atlanta, GA 30303
Tel: +1-678-954-0670
Fax: +1-404-961-1892
Web: http://www.evaristesys.com/
--
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