The Prepaid Press - July 15, 2008 - (Page Cover1) 5 Minutes With Bertrand Sosa Page 8 President and Co-Founder, MPOWER Labs FREE Subscription for Prepaid Industry Professionals. Electronic and Print Versions Available www.prepaid-press.com/subscribe The Prepaid Press Real News, Right Now! REAL NEWS, RIGHT NOW! July 15, 2008. Volume 7. Number 7 Also in this issue RETAIL FOCUS E-POS Goes Wireless Page 26 Florida AG Settles With Calling Card Providers Nine Companies Agree to Reforms, Auditing By Gene Retske million for the cost of its investigation and future enforcement efforts. The companies signing agreements with the Attorney General’s Office are IDT America, Inc.; Union Telecard Alliance (UTA); Total Call International, Inc.; Blackstone Calling Card, Inc.; CVT Prepaid Solutions, Inc.; Dollar Phone Enterprise, Inc.; STi Prepaid, LLC; Alternatel, Inc; and Cristel Telecommunications, LLC. The Attorney General specifically praised IDT, an international prepaid calling card provider that approached the Attorney General’s Office with information about the problems in the industry and cooperated fully with the investigation. PREPAID WIRELESS The Changing Face of Prepaid Wireless Page 14 TPPEXPO’08 SPOTLIGHT Page 10 In a case that could set the standard for states dealing with calling card issues, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum announced, on June 11, that his office has reached a resolution of an action that began in August 2007. The nine companies have agreed to cease all deceptive advertising, provide 100 percent of the minutes advertised, and submit to three years of auditing by the Office of the Attorney General to ensure that they are following the terms of their agreement. The companies will also collectively reimburse the Attorney General’s Office more than $1 Background of the Action The original action involved four Florida based service providers and six non-Florida based companies. The Florida companies who were served were: Blackstone Calling Card Inc. in Miami; Alternatel Inc. in Pembroke Pines; Prima, known as PCI, in Doral, and Cinco Telecom, doing business as Orbitel, in Miami. Other companies the attorney general’s office is seeking more information from are CVT Prepaid Solutions Inc.; Cristel Telecom; STi Prepaid LLC, doing business as STi; Union Telecard Alliance, also known as UTA; IDT America Corp. and Total Call International Inc., Continues on page 22 Virgin Mobile To Buy Helio for $39M Equity Deal Based on Stock Exchange by Gene Retske In a “good news – bad news” scenario, what is arguably the biggest US MVNO, Virgin Mobile USA, Inc. (NYSE: VM) has agreed to acquire troubled Helio, a joint venture between SK Telecom and EarthLink, Inc. (Nasdaq: ELNK). The announcement said that Virgin Mobile will acquire Helio from SK Telecom and EarthLink for limited partnership units equivalent to 13 million shares of Virgin Mobile USA class A common stock, with a value of $39 million based on the closing price of Virgin Mobile USA’s class A shares on June 26, 2008. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2008, subject to receiving regulatory approvals and satisfaction of other customary closing conditions. Dan Schulman, Chief Executive Officer, Virgin Mobile USA, said, ”We believe that the acquisition of Helio and the related strategic investments by SK Telecom and Virgin Group are of enormous benefit to our business, both financially and strategically. The reduction of our long-term debt and the increase to our revolver will realign our capital structure, providing us with greater liquidity and increased flexibility to grow our business. At the same time, we will acquire an asset which will add to our scale, allowing us to reduce our network costs and assure that Helio’s customers are immediately profitable when brought on to our cost structure. We expect the combined elements Continues on page 16 20533 Biscayne Blvd., Suite 1142. Aventura, FL 33180. US Tampa, FL Permit No. 3311 PRSRT STD U.S. Postage PAID http://www.prepaid-press.com/subscribe
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