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WPD News Service |
Issue 64b. 12/09/00
-A report on Saudi Arabia
Old phone system completely closed because STC (Saudi Telecommunication Co.) they removed all old phone booths and the users returned unused without
chip cards to the STC. So the collectors will not be able to get old cards with
old system except those dealers who have still old cards like me. The new cards have the validity after first use one year time. Most of the
cards STC is issuing but some may be through advertisers. Most of the chip cards
are have only two type values, 50 & 100 Saudi Riyals. I don't know the exact quantity but I have seen almost 7 different cards up till now.
/Contributed by Sheraz Ahmed, dealer/
-New phonecard from Mauritius
Mauritius Kestrel(local
Falcon)240 units-R200*
saved by the Mauritius Wild life foundation
40,000
/Contributed by Joe, dealer/
-New Romanian phonecards
Lei: 50.000 Forest in autumn Mintage: 900.000
/Contributed by, Christian, collector/
-New Sonera phonecard
D229
UFO
12/00 20.000 FIM 30;-
/Sonera/
-New Phonecards from Palestine Authority, Paltel
Edition Quantity
(Cards) Distribution
Date Price
(NIS) Type
(# of Calling Units)
First 225,000 Apr. 2000 10 45
Second 50,000 Sep. 2000 10 45
/Paltel/
-New Disney phonecards from South Africa
A set of 10 different Disney cards was just issued in South Africa. The cards include Winnie the Pooh, Hercules and other Disney cartoons.
/Contributed by Africaphonecards, dealership/
-For Collegefest2K in Boston, RNK Telecom created perhaps one of the ugliest promotional cards ever. The card is thick plastic, but has very faded colors. 2500 made.
-ATT phonecard for the Olympics with McDonalds and a public set:
-New CTM phonecards
-New Swisscom phonecard set
-New Belgacom phonecards
-Although happened months ago, Gemplus, the smart card world leader, announces the acquisition of the business of ODS Landis & Gyr, the smart card division of Landis & Gyr Communications. The deal has been approved by the German Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt) on April 20th 2000, and the closing has been effected.
ODS is a well-established supplier of smart cards with its focus on banking, telecommunication and Pay TV applications, mainly in European markets. Based on its profound expertise especially in GeldKarte technology, the company is an important player in the German banking segment. With about 240 employees at its offices in Ismaning near Munich and its production site in Seebach (Thuringia), ODS achieved a turnover of approx. 70 Mio. DM (35,8 Mio. Euro) in 1999.
With this acquisition, Gemplus intends to strongly reinforce its market position in Germany and Central Europe and to offer a wider choice of applications to those customers. Since its creation, Gemplus has been very committed to the German smart card market, one of the largest and most innovative in the world. In 1999, Gemplus achieved a growth of more than 40% in the Central and Eastern European region. Apart from telecommunication, banking, transport and health, Gemplus is now actively approaching emerging markets such as E-business, Computing Security and Digital Signature in order to sustain this substantial growth.
Other news:
New phonecard catalogue from MVCards:
Oceania 3
By Daniele Pitarresi and A.M.Kilpatrick
104 pages, full color - Includes: Australia (Telstra magnetic), Christmas Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, Norfolk Islands, and Tuvalu.
Issued: NOVEMBER 2000
Price: Under 10 Euro
Purchase at www.mvcards.com 20% Christmas sale+refer to WPD for extra 5% off!
-New VTC Newsletter for Oct.- Nov.- Dec. is out with information
about:
New Belgian cards, Swiss cards. World news, Phonecard EXPO 2000 (USA) summary,
Club agenda, international fairs. www.vtconline.com
-GTPC NEwsletter is out. The Greater Tornonto Phonecard Club
newsletter is out with information on US and Canadian cards, the Phonecard
Collectors EXPO 2000 fair and more. To get ordeR: Pat Evans GTPC 145 Renfield
St, Guelph, Ontario, N1E 4B1, Canada $15 for a year.
-Upcoming fairs:
-The Greek phonecard club PARTHENON is organizing its first exhibition on the 16 and 17 December 2000 at the Hotel Divani Palace Acropolis e mail Acropol+AEA-otenet.gr
Taking part will be well known dealers from Germany, England, Lebanon Greece.etc
Information PARTHENON club telephone 00301 3244126
or Vice President John Ioannidis telephone 00301 6424626
or Gen, Secretary Victor Glinos telephone 00301 4328585
-The 6th annual
International telephone card ehibition will be held in Houilles on the 27th
and 28th of January 2001 at the "Espace Ostermeyer", Houilles, France.
In a few years time, SIT has become a must for card collectors
and dealers. Originally conceived for phonecards, SIT has become an event for
which all card collectors will find what they are looking for.
A couple of figures will confirm SIT's incredible take off : in 1996 (the first
year), 35 exhibitors (of which 10 were foreigners from 4 different countries)
believed in us. At the last exhibition (SIT 2000) we had 87 exhibitors from 33
different countries. Having such diversity is the SIT's major advantage. How
many shows of the like can compare ?
http://tch.ifrance.com/tch/SIT_2001/sit_2001.html
Fair summaries:
Vilvordee-Belgium
The 2000 VTC fair was a great success, with hundreds of collectors attending from many countries. The small hall was filled with tables, collectors and dealers searching for the bargain or the right buyer. Be sure to attend this fair next year! www.vtconline.com
Collector-Prague
Here was a conference of World Bank and The Monetary Fund at the end of September. All children had holidays and many
people were out of Prague. That's why there were less visitors on the Collector. There were only
about 15 dealers from abroad, from western Europe only one from Wien. I think they were afraid to come. That's why importance of the Collector
was little. The most important thing was that there were offered the first three public cards from Monte Negro. The other offers were not so
much important, most of them were cards from Russia and other Post-Soviet Republics, more often cards from Panama to Guatemala are
offered. I hope that another meeting on the 4th of November will be
much better.
Nortex-Norway
Nortex was quite successful this year. Hundreds of collectors attended the
show. Telenor had a great presence.
/Telenor/
-Dezhou City Phonecard Fair
China has thousands of phonecard collectors and has many fairs for collectors. This time the fair was in Dezhou city. China Telecom issued a special card for the fair. For more information http://yilingka.bizland.com/
-WPD Chat summary:
We will be restarting the popular weekly chats, which are held every Saturday 10am EST/5pm GMT. A month ago, the chat was very well attended with collectors from 10 countries including South Africa, Turkey, Macedonia and more! www.geocities.com/novci/chat.html
The "WPD news" is the free weekly news service of the Worldwide Phonecard Database (WPD). Copyright WPD 1999-2000 PR is from Reuters