World Phone has once again broken all price barriers in international call rates by announcing its premium Internet telephony unlimited plans to USA, UK, Australia and Canada, which will be available at Rs. 1,500 per month onwards, effectively bringing the price down to an unbelievable less than 50 paisa per minute*, the cheapest ever international call rates in India on any legal Internet telephony network! World Phone is the same VoIP service brand of repute that recently brought down the international call rates to 95 paisa for a call made to over 30 countries worldwide using its pre-paid VoIP calling cards.
Said Mr. Aditya Ahluwalia, Chairman, World Phone Internet Services Private Limited, "World Phone has always believed in taking the lead and offering its customers the most affordable Internet telephony services in the industry while maintaining the superior quality of its ever popular international voice calling services. We are confident that our new plans will find preference amidst our target audience."
World Phone's new service will allow consumers to connect to their dear ones in US, UK , Canada, Australia and many more countries for an ultra-affordable fixed monthly subscription without even using a computer!
Subscribers will get a regular telephone with an international virtual number, which if directly plugged in to a DSL/broadband Internet connection, allows them to make unlimited international calls to the country of their choice.
World Phone has introduced the following:
- Unlimited Plans to allow its customers enough choice both in terms of their budgets and preferred call destinations
- Unlimited USA & Canada – Rs. 1,500/month. Available with a USA virtual number and unlimited call minutes to USA and Canada
- Unlimited USA , UK & Canada – Rs. 2,000/month. Available with UK virtual number and unlimited call minutes to USA , UK and Canada . Customer also gets additional USA virtual number for FREE.
- Unlimited USA , UK , Canada & Australia – Rs. 2,500/month. Available with Australia virtual number and unlimited call minutes to USA , Australia , UK and Canada . Customer also gets additional USA virtual number for FREE.
World Phone has also introduced the following Basic Plans:
- Basic USA – Rs. 750/month. Available with a USA virtual number and 500 Free call minutes to over 30 countries.
- Basic USA & UK – Rs. 950/month. Available with UK virtual number and 500 Free call minutes to over 30 countries. Customer also gets additional USA virtual number for FREE.
- Basic USA & Australia – Rs. 1150/month . Available with an Australia virtual number and 500 Free call minutes to over 30 countries. Customer also gets additional USA virtual number for FREE.
- Basic Asia – Rs. 1350/ month. Available with a China or Hongkong or South Korea virtual number and 500 Free call minutes to over 30 countries. Customer also gets additional USA virtual number for FREE.
* Estimate based on assumption that customers make use of 3000 talk minutes a month on the Unlimited USA & Canada Plan
World Phone services will be available at outlets across Delhi in the first phase. The connections may also be booked by logging on to World Phone's website www.worldphone.in or by making a call to World Phone's Response Management Center 's Toll Free number 1800116633 from an MTNL/BSNL landline or by calling 011-26812040 from any landline across India . The service will soon be launched in Mumbai within a month and then extended to other major cities across India including Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Kolkata, Pune, Ahmedabad etc.
World Phone's new plan is loaded with a number of value-added features that will definitely be appreciated by their primary target audience, that have at least one close relative currently abroad. These features include unlimited voice mails, automatic voice mail forwarding to designated email ID, caller ID display and blocking, call forwarding to any international numbers, conferencing and 3-way calls, unlimited incoming calls, unlimited free calls between World Phone customers and much more.
World Phone's move is expected to take the illegal VoIP service providers head on in India , which have been luring the customers on price-based advantages so far while jeopardizing the national security, which has been a major cause of worry for intelligence agencies for long.
"We want to assist the Indian government in curbing the rapid proliferation of illegal internet telephony service providers in India and help users understand the relevance of the issue. Users need to be educated on the fact that using the services of the grey market operators in the VoIP sector may have serious implications as they might compromise national security unknowingly," added Mr. Ahluwalia.
World Phone is India 's first licensed ITSP (Internet Telephony Services Provider) to directly counter the grey market by introducing unlimited international VoIP services to countries like USA , UK , Canada etc. at an extremely affordable cost. With World Phone's affordable plans, which are the lowest in India , consumers will be left with no reason to choose a service provider from the grey market.
Many people in India are subscribing to VoIP services from various grey market operators over the Internet and making calls to international phone numbers. Unofficial figures state these users at being over 1,000,000 across the country, which could actually be much higher. As such, these companies operating in the grey market not only cause huge losses to the exchequer ( 12.36% Service Tax, 6% DoT revenue share, VoIP Licence Fees etc.) but also make it very difficult for the national security agencies to legally intercept such calls in the interest of the nation.
As per the Indian laws, only those ISPs designated as the Internet Telephony Service Providers (ITSPs) by the Department of Telecom are authorized to offer voice over Internet services to the Indian citizens. Bypassing of the ITSP facilities and legal gateways through calls from PCs in India to landline or mobile phones abroad not only results in evasion of such statutory charges and taxes but also enables escaping the eyes of legal agencies. TRAI has also expressed concern that anti-national elements are making use of the VoIP services of companies who are not licensed to offer their services in India . TRAI has recently termed such companies as grey market operators and also brought the issue to the notice of the DoT.
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