Comm South Companies, Inc., was an American prepaid home telephone companies. Before prepaid phone service, consumers had the choice of only signing up with their local telephone company for home phone service, such as Southwestern Bell, Pacific Bell, Alltel and GTE. Comm South Companies declared bankruptcy in 2003. [1]
A telephone card, calling card or phonecard for short, is a credit card-size plastic or paper card used to pay for telephone services. It is not necessary to have the physical card except with a stored-value system; knowledge of the access telephone number to dial and the PIN is sufficient. Standard cards which can be purchased and used without any sort of account facility give a fixed amount of credit and are discarded when used up; rechargeable cards can be topped up, or collect payment in arrears. The system for payment and the way in which the card is used to place a telephone call vary from card to card.
A payphone is typically a coin-operated public telephone, often located in a telephone booth or in high-traffic public areas. Prepayment is required by inserting coins or telephone tokens, swiping a credit or debit card, or using a telephone card.
Bell Canada is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is an ILEC in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec; as such, it was a founding member of the Stentor Alliance. It is also a CLEC for enterprise customers in the western provinces.
AT&T Wireless Services, formerly part of AT&T Corporation, was a wireless telephone carrier founded in 1987 in the United States, based in Redmond, Washington, and later traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock symbol "AWE", as a separate entity from its former parent.
Cincinnati Bell, doing business as Altafiber, is a regional telecommunications service provider based in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. It provides landline telephone, fiber-optic Internet, and IPTV services through its subsidiaries Altafiber Home Phone and Hawaiian Telcom, which are the incumbent local exchange carriers for the Greater Cincinnati metropolitan area and Hawaii. Other subsidiaries provide enterprise information technology services and long distance calling.
A prepaid mobile device, also known as a pay-as-you-go (PAYG), pay-as-you-talk, pay and go, go-phone, prepay or burner phone, is a mobile device such as a phone for which credit is purchased in advance of service use. The purchased credit is used to pay for telecommunications services at the point the service is accessed or consumed. If there is no credit, then access is denied by the cellular network or Intelligent Network. Users can top up their credit at any time using a variety of payment mechanisms.
Prepaid telephone calls are a popular way of making telephone calls which allow the caller to control spending without making a commitment with the telephone company.
TracFone Wireless, Inc. (TFWI) is an American prepaid, no-contract mobile phone provider. TFWI is a subsidiary of Verizon Communications, and offers products and services under several brands. It operates as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), holding agreements with the three largest United States wireless network operators to provide service: AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile US, and Verizon.
Alltel was a landline, wireless and general telecommunications services provider, primarily based in the United States. Before its wireless division was acquired by Verizon Wireless and AT&T, Alltel provided cellular service to 34 states and had approximately 13 million subscribers. As a regulatory condition of the acquisition by Verizon, a small portion of Alltel was spun off and continued to operate under the same name in six states, mostly in rural areas. Following the merger, Alltel remained the ninth largest wireless telecommunications company in the United States, with approximately 800,000 customers. On January 22, 2013, AT&T announced they were acquiring what remained of Alltel from Atlantic Tele-Network for $780 million in cash.
Prepaid refers to goods and services paid for in advance. Examples include postage stamps, attorneys, tolls, public transit cards like the Greater London Oyster card, pay as you go cell phones, and stored-value cards such as gift cards and preloaded credit cards.
Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A., is the Cuban state company that provides telephony and communications services in Cuba. It is the sole lawful provider of telephony and telecommunications permitted by the Cuban penal code, constituting a communications state monopoly that has 8 million clients, both national and foreign.
Virgin Plus is a Canadian provider of postpaid and prepaid wireless voice, text and data communications services throughout Canada. They also offer home Internet and TV services in select areas of Ontario and Quebec. Launched as Virgin Mobile Canada on March 1, 2005, as a joint venture between Virgin Group and BCE Inc., BCE took sole ownership on July 1, 2009, when it closed a deal to purchase the stake it did not already own. Virgin Plus calls its customers 'Members' and offers a Member Benefits program, which provides its customers with special offers, discounts, and VIP experiences.
Solo Mobile is a discontinued mobile virtual network operator in Canada started by Bell Mobility in 2000. Historically, Solo was considered a discount wireless brand, offering low price monthly plans with some unlimited options in certain cities. Its products and services were only sold in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. The brand ceased advertising towards new customers since November 2011, and new activations were officially discontinued on May 17, 2012.
Telephone numbers in the Philippines follow an open telephone numbering plan and an open dial plan. Both plans are regulated by the National Telecommunications Commission, an attached agency under the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).
SRT Communications is the largest telecommunications cooperative in North Dakota, serving over 99,000 people with Internet, Security Alarm and Video Surveillance, and Business Phone Systems and services.
The history of the prepaid mobile phones began in the 1990s when mobile phone operators sought to expand their market reach. Up until this point, mobile phone services were exclusively offered on a postpaid basis (contract-based), which excluded individuals with poor credit ratings and minors under the age of 18 In early 1991, Kenneth Johnson of Queens, New York, President of Alicomm Mobile, was the first to successfully create a prepaid cellular phone and Network. His company expanded to a Sales force from Maine to Florida. Two years later others would come out with similar systems.
Pioneers, a Volunteer Network, founded and more commonly known as the Telephone Pioneers of America, is a non-profit charitable organization based in Denver, Colorado in the United States. The association was organized in Boston in November 1911 by 246 pioneers active in the early days of telephony, including Alexander Graham Bell who received membership card No. 1. The first elected president was Theodore N. Vail, president of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T).
PC Mobile is a licensed white label prepaid wireless service operated in Canada. Its mobile telephone products and services operate on the network infrastructure operated by Bell Mobility and formerly Telus Mobility, but licensed the proprietary branding and payment media with the President's Choice supermarket store brand owned by Loblaws Inc. It also operates mobile phone kiosks in Loblaws banner stores under the name The Mobile Shop.
TDS Telecom is an American telecommunications company with headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Telephone and Data Systems Inc, and is the seventh-largest local exchange carrier in the U.S. TDS Telecom offers telephone, broadband Internet and television services to customers in 30 states and more than 900 rural and suburban communities, though it also serves some urban metropolitan communities. It also sells businesses communications services, including VoIP phone service, dedicated broadband Internet and hosted-managed services. With headquarters in Madison, TDS Telecom operates TDS Broadband LLC, and BendBroadband, and TDS Metrocom, LLC. Combined, the company employs nearly 3,300 people. In 2019, TDS Telecom and parent company TDS Inc. celebrated 50 years in business.