When I was growing up in a small town in Washington State, I thought there were only around 5 or 6 nationalities of people who had major populations in the United States.
After moving to the New York City area after college, I found out I was very wrong. There were people from Australia, Albania, Bangladesh, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Lebanon, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Peru, Poland, Russia, Thailand, UK, Vietnam and many more.
A few years later I started selling prepaid phone cards and I discovered that people living in the USA were calling family overseas. People were calling to hundreds of countries worldwide. You name the country, and calls were being made to that country in mass amounts. Calls were being made to Cambodia, Chile, Ethiopia, Laos, Kenya, Turkey and worldwide.
You know what? People living in the US are still making billions of dollars worth of international calls and most mobile network providers don’t realize that.
People living in the United States with ethnic backgrounds spend money. They spend a lot of money on telecommunications in particular. They like the latest phone. They like to talk, text message, download songs, etc.
Since the mobile phone company executives must be much smarter than I, it surprises me that none of the major carriers really offer international calling. Yes, they may claim they have direct dial international calls available, but people are not going to spend $1 per minute to call the U.K., when they can call with a prepaid phone card for under .05 per minute.
There is only one cellular company that offers direct dial international calls at competitive rates. That company is STi Mobile. STi Mobile’s parent company STi sells about 200 million dollars a year in prepaid calling cards used mostly for international calls. That is why STi Mobile understands the potential of combining cheap international rates with cell phone services.
However, STi Mobile has limited offerings for phones, downloads and media. I would love to see a company put it all together. Great rates, competitive direct dial international calls, great phones, and great add-ons. That would be cool.
By the way, I am of Dutch descent. My dad was born in Holland, but all his relatives are here now. I now live in North Carolina and was visiting New Jersey for Christmas. My family and I visited Ellis Island last week and found it very interesting. Did you know the word “Hoodlum” is Dutch? Have a Happy New Year.
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Russ Snapper has been in the prepaid market for over 10 years. His company Cheap Phone Cards offers prepaid callingcards, mobile refill airtime, and prepaid cell phones.
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