The Localphone Blog

On the 1st May 2008 the PTA in Pakistan increased the tax on incoming calls and mandated that all the licensed LDI’s in Pakistan charge calls at the wholesale rate of $0.10 per minute instead of the previous $0.025 rate. When we first announced this we had many complaints from customers that other providers were not putting up prices to the levels that the above increase dictated so we listened and we did indeed find cheaper routes and were able to reduce our rate accordingly. We have however found it increasingly hard to purchase routes that not only offer a good price but also quality and I am sad to say that one by one these routes have just disappeared and today the last of the routes at the lower prices terminated service without notice.

Quality is our number one priority and we just cannot buy the routes needed at the quality levels you expect so we are now forced once again to increase our prices. I am truly sorry that we are in this position but all I can say is that we will work hard to offer a great service at market leading rates. With this in mind we will no longer attempt to purchase Pakistan routes from anyone other than those provided by licensed LDI’s in Pakistan. This will not only ensure that the quality is great but the person you are calling will see your caller ID.

From 23:00 UTC Saturday 21st June our rate to Pakistan for both mobiles and Landlines will be 5.6p (inc VAT) / 10.5¢.

We will continue to negotiate hard with the LDI’s in Pakistan to get the rate down and I assure you we will pass any decreases down to you immediately.

Thank you for your loyalty.

Paul Cusack
CEO
Localphone

We understand that many of our customers must feel angry at the rates to Pakistan increasing. We do not want to charge more but we have no choice. We all work very hard at Localphone to provide a high quality service at good prices. Every provider will have to pay this new tax to terminate to the PSTN in Pakistan. This tax by the Pakistani Government has increased from 1.25p to 5p (2.5¢ / 10¢) per minute!! This is the vast majority of the cost of the call we are charging. We are making less money now than before, and very much understand and share your anger, but please direct it at those responsible as we are powerless to change anything.

Read more about the tax increase.

I hope you understand that this affects every provider of calls to Pakistan and not just Localphone, and that moving to another company will not stop this charge. We will bring prices down as we get better rates, but anyone who offers a lower price than this will certainly only be doing so for a very short period of time as a trick to get customers. Please be patient and we will soon offer the best price in the market again, as we will demonstrate when the effect of the tax becomes clear over the coming days. There will be companies out there that have not yet realised their wholesale price has increased and may for a few days be charging the old prices, but no company will ever be able to maintain their old rate as the increase by the Pakistan government is so massive that to do so would mean financial disaster.

Please join us in signing an on-line petition to protest this unreasonable tax hike.

Paul Cusack, CEO Localphone Ltd.

Update: We have managed to source a new supplier and have reduced our rate to Pakistan

We’re sorry to announce to those of you who call Pakistan that at 9pm tonight UK time (20:00 UTC) our rate to Pakistan will rise to £0.06 / $0.12 / €0.078 per minute.

The government of Pakistan has increased taxes for incoming international phone calls massively by increasing the ASR (Approved Settlement Rate) from USD $0.025 per minute to $0.10. This affects all carriers who terminate calls to Pakistan and Localphone will not benefit from this increase.

Rest assured that we are constantly working with our suppliers to get Localphone customers the best possible rates and we hope to be able to offer price reductions in the near future.

You can read more about the Pakistan tax changes that have forced this price increase on the official PTA announcement here (63k PDF).

We still offer great quality, cheap international calls using a local access number.

Update: Our CEO discusses the rate increase
Update: We have managed to source a new supplier and have reduced our rate to Pakistan

We have today introduced some improvements to the calling card feature offered by Localphone for its customers. These improvements have been implemented following suggestions from Localphone customers.

Localphone calling card was designed to replicate the functionality of a regular calling card and essentially allows our customers to make calls by dialling any of our access numbers around the world. When they dial the access number we check to see whether we recognise the phone number they are calling from and whether a pin number is set. If we don’t recognise the phone number from the caller ID of the caller they are asked to enter their account number and pin. If we recognise the number and a pin is set they are prompted to enter their pin number. Once authenticated a caller has the following options:

1. Make a call to any number around the world at normal Localphone rates.
2. Check their account balance.

The improvements we have made today relate to being able to make multiple calls from a single call to the access number. The changes are as follows:

1. If the person you are calling hangs up before you you will now automatically be taken back to the main menu.
2. If you want to hang up a call simply press * and you will again be taken back to the main menu.

Customers have requested this as some operators charge per call rather than per minute. One such example is for our UK customers who use Vodafone. Vodafone in the UK offer “stop the clock” where you pay for 3 minutes but can talk for up to 60 minutes at evenings and weekends. With the improvements mentioned above you can now use your mobile to make calls for up to an hour but pay for 3 minutes. Also, Vodafone offer “Vodafone Passport” which allows you to make a call using your regular tariff when roaming for a one off connection fee of 75p. This means that you could be in Spain making calls to the UK calling card number for 75p plus the cost Localphone charge on top. Please be aware that if you use Vodafone passport in this way you must call the UK calling card number as you use your home tariff.

We aim to keep bringing you ways to bring an end to the rip off calling card companies and mobile operators rogue practices of high prices and hidden fees.

We’ve just slashed our rates to call Bangladesh to 2p per minute. For our USA customers the rate is now 4¢ per min and for Europe the price is 2.6c per min. That rate applies to all Bangladesh phone numbers, mobile and landlines. So get calling!

Today marks the end of our January promotion which was really popular, bringing in lots of new Localphone customers, and a lot of positive feedback about how easy to use the Localphone service is. So, a big thank you to all the customers who have called or emailed us feedback, and a warm welcome to all our new customers from the Localphone team.

We thought we would up the stakes for February: we are going to reward our loyal customers who recommend us to friends and family.

It’s simple really. Recommend a friend and whenever they add credit in the first 90 days you get 10% of whatever they added as bonus call credit, so if you’ve got lots of friends you could be making calls for free!

For Example…

If you recommend five friends and they each, in the first 90 days, add £100 call credit – you will get £50 of free call credit to use calling whoever you like!

So what do you have to lose? Recommend Localphone to your Friends now »

Making cheap international calls with Localphone is now even easier with the launch of our SMS Text Service. You can send an SMS text message to Localphone to check your call credit balance or to get a local number that calls an international number when you don’t have internet access.

Send the word help to +447786207107 for simple instructions, or look at our SMS Text Service page for more details.