Recently there have been some questions as to why calls to some countries are more expensive than others, and why we were recently able to lower rates for some countries but not others. Unfortunately, we do not have full control over the rates. There are many factors in the process of determining a rate to a country. It depends mostly on how connected the country is to the outside world, and how competitive the telecommunications industry is in the country. For example, Gambia and Sierra Leone are more expensive to call no matter what service you use, because the countries are not connected to the
South Atlantic 3/West Africa Submarine Cable which connects many other ECOWAS countries, and they are also dominated by provider Africell, which has over a
69% market share in Gambia and
55% in Sierra Leone. Because they control the markets’, Africell can charge high termination fees, which are the fees that providers charge other providers to allow calls in their network. This makes it more expensive to transfer calls from other countries to Gambia and Sierra Leone, which is why the rates are higher. Other ECOWAS countries, such as Nigeria, are connected to the cable, and have far
more competition in their telecommunications industry, which allows calling rates to Nigeria to be significantly less expensive. Many African countries have the problem or market domination and limited connectivity, which will hopefully be improved in the near future.
StanaCard finds this gap in technology and pricing as upsetting as you do, and we want to express our sincere frustration to our customers. We understand how expensive international calls can be, and if there were any way we could lower the rates all-around, we certainly would. Thankfully, with StanaCard you never have to worry about disconnection or connection fees. There are never any hidden charges, unlike many less customer-friendly services and calling cards. We assure you we will continue to offer extremely competitive rates and provide you with high quality service.
Please tell your friends and family about our great service, as the more people who call, the better the rates we can offer. Don’t forget there are always ways to save money with StanaCard. Our unmatched referral program doubles the first purchase of your friend and offers you the same amount as a bonus, which you can use as credit or even cash out using PayPal. Just think; all of your calls back home could be completely free! Also, with our new Gifting service, everyone can use StanaCard, even if they don’t have a credit card.
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