Alternate Communication Platforms Overtake Carriers

With Bluetone Telecom, customers can speak with others located in countries around the world for as low as one cent per minute. Recently, Bluetone Telecom expanded its brand by introducing a new calling card service that is available in the United States, Australia, and Canada. Visit www.btone.us, www.btone.ca, or www.btone.com.au for more information.

Prepaid calling plans allow customers to put dollars onto a card and use it to cover predetermined international calling rates in a way that is similar to employing a credit card. However, as international phone services become more popular, prepaid international calling cards are disappearing.

In recent years, the expansion of the international telecommunications industry has been rendering prepaid calling cards obsolete. The trend first was noted as early as 2004 when Skype services started drawing customers away from international carriers. In 2011, international traffic on Skype reached nearly 438 billion minutes, an amount which was roughly three times higher than that of carrier traffic during that same period.