Orange’s international calling card sim boosts confusion
News just in from France Telecom’s local subsidiary: it’s introducing a “simple and low cost” way to call abroad. Is it lowering its international call rates? No! Don’t be silly. It’s putting out the Call Abroad pay-as-you-go SIM, which offers “the cheapest rates currently available for international calls”. Only 8p a minute to my native South Africa? Huzzah.
I was particularly interested to read David Meyer’s post that was brought to my attention by an SMS Text News reader.
Definitely worth a read.
It seems Orange have seen fit to introduce a new pay as you go sim card that offers reasonably good rates abroad.
If you’re a normal pay as you go customer, then screw you. With bells on. You’ll need to get hold of this special sim card to get the benefits.
Crazy. But worth it, if you’re an operator desperate to protect your semi-dwindling revenues. Good rates = good news. Just… well it’s just an arse messing around with more and one sim card isn’t it…
A few months ago I heard about an MVNO planning to launch with exactly this proposition - insert our sim and get cheaper calls abroad. There was also something about earning cash back by dialling a special number if you are already on a contract you can’t break.
It seemed like a reasonable idea, if there was enough marketing support to put behind it to make it well enough known. However, they wanted to launch it on the cheap to their 10 friends and expect it to take off ‘virally’.
Anyway, not surprisingly I’ve not heard a thing for ages. Does anyone else know anything?
Posted by Patrick on May 11th, 2007 at 2:20 pm.