The Localphone Blog

Hot on the heels of our recent price reduction (Jan 26th – “New Recession Busting Rates to Call India“) I am pleased to announce yet another drop in the cost of calling India. Effective immediately our new rate to India landlines and mobiles is a market-leading 1.9p GBP / 2.9¢ USD / 2.3c EUR per minute.

This is not just a short-term gimmick or promotion, and there are no terms, hidden fees, or minimum top-ups; just low rates and a great quality, direct route to India.

Thanks to the enthusiastic response to our most recent round of price drops we have already been able to return to our suppliers and negotiate a better rate; savings we are passing straight on to you.

Don’t forget; the longer you call, and the more friends you recommend, the stronger our position to negotiate even better rates on your behalf. I’d like to thank you once again on behalf of everybody at Localphone for your continued loyalty and support.

Best wishes,
Paul Cusack, CEO.

Last week I wrote to let you know that the Government’s tax on calls to Pakistan would result in a price rise for Localphone. Because these rates were being imposed upon us we wanted to give you advance warning, even though we were still negotiating with our suppliers. I’m pleased to report that one of our carriers has presented us with a solution that allows for a smaller increase than we previously thought possible.

Effective immediately our rates for calls to Pakistan have fallen to 7.95p / 10¢ / 9c per minute to both landlines and mobiles. We will of course continue to work with our partners to reduce rates to their previous levels as soon as possible.

Best wishes,
Paul Cusack, CEO.

Localphone aims to gradually reduce our rates over time as our service grows and we are able to negotiate better deals with our suppliers. Unfortunately from time to time an external force interferes with this plan and as of Sunday 1st February the Pakistan government’s tax on companies that handle calls into the country will cause a huge surge in our suppliers’ rates.

Inevitably this means we will also have to increase our rates, and from the morning of February 1st the cost of calling Pakistan landlines and mobiles will be 10.3p for UK customers, 11.4c for Euro customers, and 12.5¢ per minute for USD customers.

Please understand that Localphone will not profit from this increase, and will in fact make less money than before. We have set these new prices at the bare minimum we can afford to continue to function as a business. We are confident that as with the last time the Pakistan government dictated a price increase in 2008, we will quickly be able to lower our rates again as the market settles.

This is a situation that we deeply regret, and feel unfairly persecutes Pakistanis abroad and legitimate companies trying to provide quality calls. All companies that use legal routes into Pakistan will be affected so we expect our competitors will announce similar rate increases shortly if they have not already.

Please rest assured that we value each of our customers who call Pakistan and will work tirelessly to secure more favourable rates for you as soon as possible.

Thank you for your continuing loyalty and support.

Best wishes,
Paul Cusack, CEO.

Customer satisfaction is very important to the Localphone team, and to this end our focus has always been on balancing low cost calling with high quality routes. It has traditionally been difficult to find reliable suppliers for calls to Bangladesh, and in the past your feedback has been that call quality hasn’t been clear and consistent.

I’m pleased to report that we have negotiated a partnership with one of the four new government licensed operators who can route traffic directly into Bangladesh. We have been testing this new supplier over recent weeks and are very pleased with the results we have seen; hopefully many of you will have already experienced the improved quality and noticed that we can now pass your Caller ID. We will be rolling out the changes to all routes into Bangladesh from February 1st.

Understandably higher quality routes come with a premium and as a result while the majority of Bangladeshi destinations will actually see a reduction in price, some customers may see their rates increase. When the new supplier goes live on the morning of February 1st our new rate for calls to all landlines and mobiles in Bangladesh will be 3.7p for UK customers, 4c for Euro customers, and 4.5¢ per minute for USD customers.

We believe that this is a step in the right direction for our users who call Bangladesh, and that you will be much happier with the Localphone service as a result.

We’d love to hear your feedback on these changes so please don’t hesitate to contact us if you’d like to discuss this or any other aspect of the Localphone service.

Update: 2009-02-13 - We’ve lowered our India rate even further!

I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that the world economy has taken a hit lately, and people are looking to cut costs wherever they can. The good news is that thanks to your continued support Localphone is in a stronger position to negotiate with our suppliers, and we’ve managed to obtain a reduced rate for our calls to India; savings we are passing on to you.

Effective immediately our new rate to both landlines and mobiles in India will be 1.95p, 3.3¢, and 2.5c per minute for GBP, USD and EUR customers respectively.

Our Long-Term Commitment to Value

We have seen some companies offer a promotional rate over the past month at a price we feel they cannot sustain in the future. I believe our customers will not fall for short-term gimmicks and appreciate our consistently low rates and dependable, quality routes.

This is our new rate going forward and we hope to only reduce it further as our service grows.

No Compromise on Quality

It is also important to note that this reduction is the result of renegotiating with our existing partners in India who we will continue to work with. Localphone has a direct digital connection to the telephone network in India and you can expect to experience the same high quality calls you’re used to receiving from Localphone.

As always we’d love to hear your suggestions so please don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any thoughts about this reduction or any other aspect of the Localphone service.

Ushering in the Year of the Ox, Chinese New Year will run from Monday 26th January to Monday 9th February. To celebrate, Localphone will be giving away free calls to Chinese landlines and mobiles each day of the festival.

For all of our customers the first 20 minutes of calls to China each day will be completely free—a massive 5 hours of free talk time over the 15 days. This should be plenty of time to wish a different friend or family member a Happy New Year every day!

We will deduct our cheap call rates to China as usual, and then on 10th February we will credit your account with a rebate for the first twenty minutes of call time to China used each day. You can find out full details on our Chinese New Year calling promotion page.

As I’m sure many of you aware, from Monday 1st of December 2008 the rate of VAT in the UK is falling from 17.5% to 15%. As a result we will be lowering the majority of our GBP and EUR rates to match (note that not all destinations will be affected due to rounding and banding). Customers with USD accounts are not charged VAT and as a result their rates will be unaffected.

The new rates will come into force at 00:00 GMT on Monday 1st December. Strictly speaking we should also lower customers’ current call credit balance to match the VAT reduction, but as a gesture of good will to our loyal customers we have decided to let you keep the difference.

Diwali starts tomorrow, and for the six days of the festival Localphone will be offering discounted calls to India. If your total call duration over the promotion is more than 200 minutes you can get an effective rate of as low as 2.2p / 3.4¢ / 3c per minute.

After the festival is over we’ll look at how many minutes you used and will top up your calling credit according to the table on our Diwali Promotion page.

As we pass our first year in business we have looked at each and every country to see where we can afford to cut our rates, and the good news is we’ve found hundreds of destinations where we can save you even more money.

There are too many savings to list here, but a few of our more popular destinations include:

Our new low rates are effective immediately, so please check our call rates or your dashboard to see if your tariff has been reduced.

No Compromise on Quality

With our latest round of price cuts we believe we have positioned ourselves as a true market leader balancing both quality and cost. Where a competitor advertises lower rates they are likely hiding the true cost of calling, or have sacrificed quality to achieve that price. Where a competitor’s rates are higher we do not believe they will offer the quality to justify the difference. As we continue to grow we will use our increased buying power to achieve even lower rates for our customers.

Rate Increases

While reviewing our tariffs we also found a few destinations where we simply can’t continue to offer acceptable levels of quality and still turn a profit at the current rates. We’ll be e-mailing those affected shortly and will post notices on the Localphone site, before updating these rates early next week.

Many of our customers dial our local access numbers from their mobiles, and have these calls included in their phone contracts’ free minutes. Unfortunately in the UK these deals rarely include calls to the toll free numbers like those starting with 0800, 0500, and 0808.

Because Localphone doesn’t charge for calls to UK toll free numbers just add them as a contact and use the local access number to call for free. If it’s a number you don’t dial very often the call is still free using the Localphone Calling Card.