Possible Solution for calling Pakistan

[Mikael]

There has been significant demand for calling Pakistan in an economical way. I have had a moment to try and think of solutions whilst waiting to hear back from suppliers and have come up with one for users of PAYG O2 SIMS.

The solution would have an overall cost of 3.75p per minute all in. A customer would need to get an O2 PAYG SIM on the Your Country tariff and top-up with £30. This would provide free 200 mins of calls to almost any International Destination. Firstly someone would call a Call-through on an International number to make calls with to Pakistan. In the process they would also earn 1200 credits whilst making the 200 mins of calls. Once the 200 free minutes are used-up, they can then call via an Irish call-through at 5p per minute that also uses up 2 credits per minute to subsidise the call to Pakistan. The £30 credit on the phone would be enough for 600 mins to the Irish call-through, and at the same time would use up exactly 1200 credits.

Overall a customer would have been able to make 800 minutes of calls to Pakistan for £30. This works out at 3.75p per minute. The service would also be using a good quality route.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

[moonandstar]

Sounds like a good idea for people who want to call Pakistan at a reliable rate which is fixed and through a quality route.

I personally would prefer to use SMS top-up or 0871 top-up via Pre-Dial as it can be more economical if you have the right packages in place such as unlimited landline and unlimited SMS bundles.

I appreciate you putting thought into ideas which can help people call Pakistan at a competitive rate and am sure other members here may want to use this service.

Members wanting more information about this solution should post their feedback here so Mikael will be aware of what type of demand he is looking at.

moonandstar.

[HiPD]

There has been significant demand for calling Pakistan in an economical way. I have had a moment to try and think of solutions whilst waiting to hear back from suppliers and have come up with one for users of PAYG O2 SIMS.

The solution would have an overall cost of 3.75p per minute all in. A customer would need to get an O2 PAYG SIM on the Your Country tariff and top-up with £30. This would provide free 200 mins of calls to almost any International Destination. Firstly someone would call a Call-through on an International number to make calls with to Pakistan. In the process they would also earn 1200 credits whilst making the 200 mins of calls. Once the 200 free minutes are used-up, they can then call via an Irish call-through at 5p per minute that also uses up 2 credits per minute to subsidise the call to Pakistan. The £30 credit on the phone would be enough for 600 mins to the Irish call-through, and at the same time would use up exactly 1200 credits.

Overall a customer would have been able to make 800 minutes of calls to Pakistan for £30. This works out at 3.75p per minute. The service would also be using a good quality route.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

I do not think this is a good idea, unlike moonandstar.
Its drawbacks are easy to see.

How many members have a Your Country O2 SIM, or want to fork out a stonking £30 for such a scheme?

How many would want to pay 3.75p / min. for their calls, when your own costing of the SMS Topup service shows that can be as economical as 0.5p / min?

You have already suffered from the backlash from O2 when you exploited their low minimum call charges by 0871 calls, so how long do you think they would endure you exploiting their Your Country offer?

Finally, isn't it a tad too complicated, as well as dear, to make it worthwhile considering?

[Mikael]

The issue with the 0871 top-up is totally different to the your country scheme. The 0871 top-up had problems on o2 due to some people making so many short calls that the calling profile was totally out of step from normal. This scheme on the other hand would result in only normal length calls and the profiles would be consistent with all other international phone calls.

Whilst 3.75p may not be as cheap as when being able to use up as many free texts as possible, this will not be possible for a while as we will have to restrict the number of texts sent down quite a bit. Also, 3.75p compares well with many other prices for calling Pakistan at the moment from a mobile phone.

[andy]

I do not think this is a good idea, unlike moonandstar.
Its drawbacks are easy to see.

How many members have a Your Country O2 SIM, or want to fork out a stonking £30 for such a scheme?

How many would want to pay 3.75p / min. for their calls, when your own costing of the SMS Topup service shows that can be as economical as 0.5p / min?

You're not comparing like with like.

For someone with a contract with loads of spare minutes and texts, there may be no supplementary cost for the relevant Pre-dial scheme. But the contract still has an overhead cost, which might average 2 or 3 or 5 pence a minute. If someone doesn't have enough bundled texts to qualify for all the minutes they want to use, they can add some.

On the other hand, this idea is for use on Pay&Go, as clearly described. As well as the £30 Mikael mentioned, there are more modest levels of top-up that get smaller bundles.

[mobaholic]

You're not comparing like with like.

For someone with a contract with loads of spare minutes and texts, there may be no supplementary cost for the relevant Pre-dial scheme. But the contract still has an overhead cost, which might average 2 or 3 or 5 pence a minute. If someone doesn't have enough bundled texts to qualify for all the minutes they want to use, they can add some.

On the other hand, this idea is for use on Pay&Go, as clearly described. As well as the £30 Mikael mentioned, there are more modest levels of top-up that get smaller bundles.

I believe that he was referring to pay & go andy: the 0.5p / min. figure he quoted came from the Vodafone PAYG free weekend text costings.       

[mobaholic]

There has been significant demand for calling Pakistan in an economical way. I have had a moment to try and think of solutions whilst waiting to hear back from suppliers and have come up with one for users of PAYG O2 SIMS.

The solution would have an overall cost of 3.75p per minute all in. A customer would need to get an O2 PAYG SIM on the Your Country tariff and top-up with £30. This would provide free 200 mins of calls to almost any International Destination. Firstly someone would call a Call-through on an International number to make calls with to Pakistan. In the process they would also earn 1200 credits whilst making the 200 mins of calls. Once the 200 free minutes are used-up, they can then call via an Irish call-through at 5p per minute that also uses up 2 credits per minute to subsidise the call to Pakistan. The £30 credit on the phone would be enough for 600 mins to the Irish call-through, and at the same time would use up exactly 1200 credits.

Overall a customer would have been able to make 800 minutes of calls to Pakistan for £30. This works out at 3.75p per minute. The service would also be using a good quality route.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

I have to confess that I had paid little attention to this thread until today.  But having looked at it anew, I cannot understand your figure Mikael.

The cheapest way that I can call your Irish callthrough is 5p / min. on either an O2 Pay & Go SIM with the 'International Bolt On' ( or a Mobile World one if I had such ).  600 minutes of calling would therefore cost me £30, in addition to the £30 topup on the Your Country SIM.

If I end up with 800 minutes, for a total cost of £60, that appears to be 7.5 p / min, rather than the figure you quoted.  Perhaps I am missing something ?

How do you justify your 3.75p figure ?  Are you saying that the £30 original credit will allow the 5p calls too ?  If so I was unaware of that.

Please clarify for one and all.  Thanks.

[Mikael]

Ahh! The clever bit is that a Your Contry SIM already has the "International Bolt-on" prices as standard on the tariff, once the free minutes are used. The Irish call-through can therefore be called from the same SIM without any messing about.

For the £30 you first use the free 200 mins, and then spend the £30 credit calling the Irish number for 5p per min. The £30 is enough to allow for 600 mins to the Irish call-through. You therefore get 800 mins in total for a £30 top-up.

[mobaholic]

Ahh! The clever bit is that a Your Contry SIM already has the "International Bolt-on" prices as standard on the tariff, once the free minutes are used. The Irish call-through can therefore be called from the same SIM without any messing about.

For the £30 you first use the free 200 mins, and then spend the £30 credit calling the Irish number for 5p per min. The £30 is enough to allow for 600 mins to the Irish call-through. You therefore get 800 mins in total for a £30 top-up.

Well done: q.e.d. !

[andy]

If I end up with 800 minutes, for a total cost of £60, that appears to be 7.5 p / min, rather than the figure you quoted.  Perhaps I am missing something ?

How do you justify your 3.75p figure ?  Are you saying that the £30 original credit will allow the 5p calls too ?  If so I was unaware of that.

The top-up gets a bundle of free int'l calls, much like but alternate to the conditional bundles of UK free texts or calls they've had for ages.

And lower top-ups can be made, for example £15 gets 100 free minutes, plus the credit to use as well

[mobaholic]

The top-up gets a bundle of free int'l calls, much like but alternate to the conditional bundles of UK free texts or calls they've had for ages.

And lower top-ups can be made, for example £15 gets 100 free minutes, plus the credit to use as well

Thank you andy.       

[Mikael]

That is a good point. If someone did not need 800 mins, they could get 400 mins in total for £15 instead. The maths does not work so well for £10 top-up, as then you only get 50 mins of free calls. However the option for either a £15 or £30 top-up would work out to be a good price.