Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Telecorp, Australia's largest provider of prepaid calling card services is changing its name to gotalk and launching a cordless phone for access to cheap 'calling card' services and a prepaid mobile service that can share the fixed line account.
It says the new cordless option will fill the gap between traditional telephone services and VoIP services from the likes of engin and My Net Fone, which are still in the too hard basket for some customers.
The key plank in its strategy is a DECT cordless phone which is pre-programmed to dial the gotalk calling card access number and authenticate the user, thus overcoming one of the barriers to calling card usage.
gotalk's $99.95 cordless phone, which includes $20 worth of call credits, has an inbuilt answering machine, music on hold and paging function. It is soon to be followed by a basic $49.95 model with $10 of call credits. Both will be sold through the major electronic retailers. gotalk says it has established strong corporate partnerships with Harvey Norman, BP, Caltex, Woolworths, Coles, Domayne, Dick Smith, Tandy and Harris Technology. And, recently Australia Post agreed to carry its products in post offices throughout Australia.
Domestic call rates at 25 cents untimed are however higher than most VoIP services. Calls to mobiles cost 24.9 cents per minute with 20 cent flagfall, also more expensive than the VoIP providers, and international calls start at 0.5 cents per minute to popular destinations.
Gotalk also offers ADSL and a VoIP offering available with either a D-Link ATA or a D-Link wireless router/ADSL modem. Local calls and national calls are 9.9 cents, calls to mobile 19.9 cents and international calls from 1.5 cents per minute.
The service also has a "happy hour" every evening between 6pm and 7pm when all fixed line calls, local national and international are only five cents, except on the $0 per month starter plan. In April, gotalk launched a 'business grade' VoIP service. http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/3839/
Telecorp/gotalk already claims to sell more than one billion international call minutes a year via its own network exchange centre in Sydney which handles more than 20 percent of all international voice traffic out of Australia. It claims that its calling card business is worth $8 million a month. It boasts revenues of $160 million. The name change will take place on 15 September.
David Bass
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