The Localphone Blog

We contacted customers on Friday to announce a special weekend rate to Pakistan, and were very pleased to see such an enthusiastic uptake.

You may recall we were recently forced to increase our rates due to higher costs imposed by the Pakistani Government. As promised, we have worked hard with our suppliers to try to reduce our rates again as soon as possible, and I’m pleased to announce our new rate to call Pakistan landlines and mobiles is USD $0.085 / GBP £0.059 / EUR €0.067 per minute, effective immediately.

While this is not yet back to the previous levels it does represent a significant reduction, and follows through on our commitment to always pass our savings on to you. We will continue to strive to be the best value for your international calls, and thank you for your ongoing support.

We have unfortunately been forced to increase our call rate to Pakistan in response to actions taken by the Pakistani Government. Effective from 00:00 GMT on 1st July our rate to Pakistan will be $0.109 / £0.076 / €0.089 per minute to both landlines and mobiles.

Due to a rise in the cost of terminating international calls in Pakistan, our suppliers have had to increase the rate they charge us, and we are forced to do the same. It is important to note that this situation is entirely unavoidable and Localphone will in fact make less profit as our margin is now even tighter.

While we always hate to increase our rates, even at these new prices we still offer considerable savings on your international calls with no compromise on quality.

We expect that all international call providers will announce similar rate increases in the coming days. As has happened in the past with Pakistan, we expect the wholesale market will quickly compete to offer lower rates and we’ll pass these savings straight on to you.

India has always been one of Localphone’s most popular calling destinations, and to say thank-you for your continued loyalty we’re going to be offering all calls to Indian landlines and mobiles at just 1p / 1.5¢ / 1.2c per minute for the rest of May.

Compared to our standard rates that’s a massive saving of up to 32%!

There has never been a better time to recommend Localphone to your friends and family. For example if they top-up just $15 you’ll earn enough for 100 minutes of talk time to any landline or mobile in India, and you’ll keep on earning more for any orders they place in the first 90 days of their account! For full details see our recommend-a-friend page.

For full details of this promotion please see our cheap calls to India page.

I hope you’ll enjoy this new low rate for your calls in May. Please take a moment to become a fan on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and let us know any suggests or feedback you have for the site or service.

Last month we reduced the cost of international SMS messaging to 30 countries, and now we’re ready for another round of savings.

Below are our new per-SMS rates to countries you have SMS’d or called. These new rates are effective immediately and you don’t have to change a thing:

To keep up to date with the latest Localphone news don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and become a fan of our Facebook page.

Please Note: The following announcement only applies to customers billed in British Pounds or Euros. Users with USD accounts will be unaffected.

The recent changes in the UK’s VAT rate—from 17.5% to 15%, and back to 17.5% this year—highlighted a number of weaknesses with our current model, where VAT is reflected in our per-minute rates.

In an effort to be more open and flexible with our billing practices from April 1st we will be reducing all of our call, SMS, and Incoming Number rates for new and existing customers by 17.5%, and adding a 17.5% charge at checkout under the heading “taxes, surcharges, and fees”. All prices on the website will be shown inclusive or exclusive of VAT at your preference.

We will also be reducing your current balance to reflect this change, but it is important to stress that no customer will be worse off as a result.

Example

Bob has a balance of £10 and is currently paying 10p per minute for his calls. This means that he has 100 minutes of talk time remaining.

On April 1st we will reduce Bob’s balance by 17.5% to £8.51 (£10 / 1.175), but also our rate per minute will go down to 8.5p per minute. Bob will still have 100 minutes of talk time remaining.

When Bob places a £10 order in the future, VAT will be added and he will pay £11.75. We will, however, give the option of reducing the order to £8.51 of credit for which he will pay £10.

I hope this e-mail provides a full explanation and plenty of notice for the upcoming change. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions.

Thanks to the overwhelming response to our half price SMS promotion last month we’ve already managed to negotiate better rates with our suppliers. I’m pleased to announce that we’re passing these savings straight on to you!

Below are our new rates to countries that have been reduced:

These new rates are effective immediately and you don’t need to change a thing. I hope you’ll enjoy our new, even cheaper international SMS messaging.

It’s time for another big Localphone promotion. This time we’re offering calls to a whopping 43 countries for 1¢ / 0.5p / 0.8c or less throughout March.

This offer is available for all new and existing customers. For full details and a list of the countries involved please check the Localphone Promotions page.

Don’t forget you can even call for free by recommending Localphone to your friends and family with our Recommend-a-Friend scheme.

To keep up-to-date with this and all Localphone promotions you can follow @localphone on Twitter or become a fan of the Localphone Facebook Page.

I’m pleased to announce that we’re halving our SMS rates to all destinations from now until the end of February.

Just as we have done with cheap international calling, we’re going to drive down the cost of sending SMS messages abroad while maintaining a reliable, high-quality service.

Here are some of our new half-price rates to popular destinations:

All International SMS Rates

Sending an SMS with Localphone couldn’t be easier. Simply log on to your Localphone dashboard to enter your messages and start sending.

To keep up-to-date with this and all the latest Localphone news please become a fan of our Facebook page and follow @localphone on Twitter.

As you may be aware, from Friday 1st January 2010 the UK’s VAT rate is going back up from 15% to 17.5%.

Most companies will be increasing their prices to compensate, but to celebrate another successful year at Localphone we’re going to keep our rates as they are, effectively giving a 2.5% discount across all destinations.

Thank you for your support in 2009. We’re looking forward to some exciting new developments over the coming months.

Please note that this notice affects our GBP and EUR customers. Users with USD accounts do not pay VAT.

Recently a few Localphone users have asked for our thoughts regarding the packages offered by some competing services, where customers pay a monthly fee and receive “unlimited” or a fixed number of minutes per month.

In our opinion these rarely offer good value for all but a relatively small number of the most heavy callers.

For example, here in the UK Vonage offers “V-Plan 4i”, advertising unlimited calls to India and others for £18.99 per month. We’ve found that a typical user calling India does so for about 400 minutes per month, giving an effective rate of 4.75p per minute (versus our current GBP rate to India from as little as 1.3p per minute).

To match our rate with Vonage you’d have to be calling for more than three times the average—almost 1,500 minutes per month!

Another common feature of these plans is a “fair usage policy” which can really sting those users that do make significantly higher numbers of calls. In Vonage’s case their fair usage policy limits their “unlimited” package to 2,000 minutes per month.

For those few users who do fall in this 1,500 to 2,000 minutes per month range we feel Localphone’s advanced features add enough value to be worth the small rate increase.

With Vonage you’re tied to using their hardware (with up to £39.99 set-up costs), while Localphone lets you call from your existing landline or mobile, or from your broadband or mobile Internet connection with Localphone VoIP. You can also send cheap international SMS messages, or even get an Incoming Number in your destination countries so friends and family can call you back.

As I’m sure our customers will agree, Localphone’s per minute billing offers significantly higher flexibility and value for money than competing package offers.

(information sourced from Vonage’s website on 23rd November, 2009)