Telephone card

For other uses of "calling card", see calling card.

File:Phonecard-journal-telephone-france.jpg

1987 France Telecom telephone card.

File:Phonecard-thermomagnetic-ptt-benin-presse.jpg

1990's telephone card from Bénin.

A telephone card, calling card or phone card for short, is a small card, usually resembling a credit card, used to pay for telephone services. Such cards can either employ prepaid credit system or credit card style system of credit. The exact system for payment, and the way in which the card is used to place a telephone call, depend on the overall telecommunication system. Currently, the most common types of telephone cards involve pre-paid credit in which the card is purchased with a specific balance, from which the cost of calls made is deducted. Pre-paid phone cards are disposable. When the balance is exhausted you simply buy a new card. Cards purchased can often be refilled. The other main type of card involves a card with a special PIN printed on it that allows one to charge calls to a land-line telephone account.

There are principally two core technologies for phonecards: stored-value and remote memory.

Stored-value phone cards

In stored value, called so because the card itself contains the balance available. The balance is read by the public pay-phone machine when it is inserted into the machine's card reader. This is similar to an automated teller machine at a bank. There are several ways in which the value can be encoded on the card.

The earliest system used a magnetic stripe as information carrier, similar to the technology of ATMs and key cards. It was issued in 1976 in Italy, manufactured by SIDA.

The next technology used optical storage. Optical phone cards get their name from visible marks left on the card, such as holes or lines, so that the card reader scans for such marks and determines the balance on the card. Optical cards, such as ones made by Landis+Gyr and Anritsu, were popular early phonecards in many countries. Such technology is quite simple and easily hackable, thus for security reasons, among others, optical phone cards have been steadily phased out around the world. Optical phonecards are still in use in several countries, perhaps most notably in Japan.

The third sub-system of stored value phone cards is chip cards, first launched on a large scale in France in 1986 by France Telecom. Many other countries followed suit, including Ireland in 1990 and the UK circa 1994-1995, which phased out the old green Landis & Gyr cards in favor of more colorful smart cards. The initial microchips were easy to hack, typically by scratching off the programming-voltage contact on the card, which rendered the phone unable to reduce the card's value after a call. But by the mid-to-late 1990s, highly secure technology aided the spread of chip phone cards worldwide.

Remote memory systems

Telephone accounts symbolized by a card

The second main technology of phonecards is remote memory, which uses a toll or toll-free access number to reach the database and check for balance on product. As the United States did not ever have a single nationalized telephone service (or even the same firm for every part of a state), and with the deregulation of its major ones, there was no incentive to be consistent with the rest of the world. The ease of use of sliding a card into a machine just as in a teller machine was countered by fears of vandalism of the machines.

The first public pre-paid remote memory phonecard was issued in the United States in December, 1980 by Phone Line. As telecom industries around the world became deregulated, remote memory cards were issued in various countries. Remote memory phonecards can be used from any tone-mode phone and do not require special card readers. Since remote memory cards are more accessible and have lower costs, remote memory phone cards have proliferated. However, the utility of these cards are reduced due to the large number of digits that need to be entered during usage. To call a long distance number, the user first dials the local access number, then keys in the secret code, followed by the actual long distance number. Based on the long distance number entered, the time remaining on the card is announced, and the call is finally processed through.

Remote memory phonecards are in essence text; requiring an access number, a unique PIN and instructions. Therefore the instructions can be printed on virtually anything, or can be delivered via e-mail or the Internet. Currently many websites sell phonecards through e-mail. However, there are websites that allows their customer to purchase phone cardsthrough phone.

Phonecards or calling cards are available in most countries in retail stores, retail chains and commonly corner stores. Generally, remote memory phonecards can be issued by many companies and come in countless varieties. They can focus on calling to certain countries or regions and have specific features such as rechargeability, pinless dial, speed dial and more. Phonecards may have connection fees, taxes and maintenance fees, all influencing the rates.

Accounts not requiring a card

In recent times, calling card service providers have gone one step ahead in reducing the costs and increasing convenience by introducing calling accounts. Calling accounts eliminate the need for printing of a physical card; accounts are available only in electronic form. Calling accounts can be purchased over the Internet using credit cards and are instantly delivered to the customer via e-mail. This e-mail contains the PIN and instructions for using the service.

Phone card as an artifact or collectible

Telecom companies have also taken advantage of phone cards to place advertising on them, or to feature celebrity portraits, artwork, or attractive photography to increase the appeal of the cards to consumers. This practice, combined with the disposability of the cards (encouraging individuals to purchase multiple cards), has led some people to start collecting phone cards as a hobby.

The hobby is called "fusilately" and a collector is known as a "fusilatelist". Phonecards have been collected worldwide since the mid 1970's and peaked in the mid 1990s. At its height, over 2 million people collected phonecards. Phonecard collecting is known occasionally as telegery in the USA or fusilately in the UK. There are many Web sites about this hobby where collectors can browse thousands of different cards from all over the world, each having some kind of personal story.

With the advent of the mobile phone, the hobby has been in decline due to the major national telecom companies ceasing to supply prepaid phonecards.

Cultural appearances

In the European Union, one of the metaphors that was used (in the days before cell phones) to win public agreement for the Euro and for various other homologations was to refer to public experience in using phone cards (of the first type) in the pay phones of many countries when travelling across Europe. America's phone cards do not do this.

See also

• Telephone token