Phonecard "Value" Designations
By Graham Rooke

Monetary Value, Units, Minutes Call Time....What does it all mean?

To the two groups most interested in phonecard values - the payphone users and the phonecard collector - these different value designations may be under stood in quite different ways.

The payphone user wants to know how long his call(s) will be using phonecard he has just purchased. In Australia, with untimed local calls, he also wants to know how many local calls he has "bought".

Phonecard collectors want to know how much the payphone operator charged for the phonecard at the time of issue, to enable him to assess its worth as a possible collectable.

Monetary value designations
ABOUT half of the world's phonecard producers designate their cards with a monetary value (e.g. a $10 card). Telecom Australia is prominent in this group. Users often feel comfortable buying a phonecard with a monetary value designation, particularly from a respected operator, as he feels he will at least get that value from using the card. However, to assess the call time to long distance and overseas destinations is complex and frustrating, as these details are rarely provided at a payphone.

The phonecard collector is also usually comfortable when he see a monetary value on a card. He reads this as the card 'face' value and again, from respected Operators, this price usually offers a fair indi cation of the card's basis worth.

Units
ABOUT half of the world's phone card producers designate their card values in units (eg a 20u card). British Telecom (BT) is prominent in this group with card values from 5u (advertising cards) through 20u (minimum BT official issues) and above (BT cards cost lop - approx 20 cents Australian) per unit - making a 20u card = £2 (approx A$4).

"Units" are an excellent method of defining the call time (in units/ minute) available from the card to a variety of destinations e.g. local call 1, Paris 10, Stockholm 20. This value designation is "user friendly" - provided the units/minutes tables are readily avallable to users.

An interesting example of a 'units' card is the Cable & Wireless Falkland Islands cards. The user is provided with call times in each booth.

To the phonecard collector, however, 'unit' designations make the assessment of card values (in monetary terms) very difficult indeed. Using the Falklands card as an example - what was the issue price? What is the card worth to buy on the collector market?

Minutes call time
A small number of phonecard producers (mostly USA) use minutes of call time as the card value. This is a very difficult 'value' to assess from every point of view - calls from where to where? What was the issue price? What is the Collector Value? Unless the "minutes call time" is dearly defined on the card, the card value is almost impossible to evaluate by user or collector.

Conclusion
THE most satisfactory value designation to both payphone users and phonecard collectors is probably a combination of monetary value and the number of call units being purchased, as used by Papua New Guinea.

Lifted from Phonecard Collector, May, 1996
The author is the technical consultant for Phonecard Collector magazine

---

[ HOME ]

---

© 2000 Jun Alday All rights reserved.