Overview

Ever since the telecommunications markets have opened up to competition worldwide and voice telephony has become a commodity, telecommunications operators and service providers have been looking for so-called killer applications. There is still much debate over whether killer applications really exist, but if they do, prepaid calling is certainly one of them.

Prepaid communications move over $5 billion in the United States alone, and have opened new markets that were difficult to reach with classic telephone subscriptions, like college students and migrant workers.

Some people argue that prepaid is not a VAS, but rather an alternative way of paying for basic services like voice telephony and Internet access. No matter how one looks at it, prepaid communications are business. Moreover being a provider of prepaid services does not require being a telecommunications operator or owning a network. In fact, prepaid provides lucrative opportunities for third parties.

Up to this point we have talked about prepaid communications in general, but there is an important difference between prepaid fixed and prepaid mobile services, both in terms of technology and business. In fixed telephony, prepaid accounts are most often used to allow long-distance calling from any public or private telephone, and are not normally associated with a particular subscriber line. ^[1]

On the contrary, prepaid mobile accounts are tied to a SIM card, and as such are directly associated with a number and a subscription. A mobile phone is a personal device, which means that the prepaid mobile account is generally...