Phone cards were first invented back in '75, by a company named SIDA. But they only became popular the next year, when introduced in Italy. Due to a shortage in coins and the growing payphone vandalism in Italy, in 1976 they decided to introduce a magnetic calling card, with a credit assigned to it, which people could buy at stores and then use to make phone calls from payphones. By 1977, these magnetic strip calling cards were already becoming quite popular in the rest of the Europe. Japan followed, introducing their first phone card some 5 years late, in 1982. Japanese people had to use a large coin to be able to place calls from payphones. In 1989, America's giant so well known under the name of AT&T joins the 'trend', featuring their very first remote telecards in Hawaii. In 1990 a breakthrough takes place: NYNEX (New York's Regional Bell Operating Company) launches the first non-magnetic strip phone card ever. Instead, their cards used a PIN (the short name stands for Personal Identification Number). The company would thus allow it's card holders to dial an 800-number, then enter their PIN and make international calls. The advantage of the PIN numbers has proven to be a major one: card holders could now use their calling card account to make phone calls using any phone they wanted, not just payphones: a landline telephone, their mobile, even a friend's cell! Starting in the early 1990's, the industry had a developing boom, going from $25 million in sales (in 1992) to a whooping $3+ billion, in 2000. As the competition gets more and more aggressive, prices seem to be continuously shrinking, making it the best option for almost anyone who makes often international calls. Phone card companies are now striving to lower their rates and improve their call quality. At the same time, there's a constant development of phone card features, to make one company's calling cards better or more convenient than others'. Imagine that you can now buy phone cards that have: automatic recharge option (you set a balance and an amount to be charged when you reach that balance); PINless dialing (you register the numbers from which you call most often, and there will be no need for you to dial a PIN when using your calling card from those phones); speed dial (allows you to allocate a phone number that you call most often to a digit on your phone; when you want to call that destination, instead of dialing the person's number, you will just press the digit assigned to him or her, through speed dial); get free trial minutes (some phone card companies allow you to create an account and sign up for some free international minutes to the destination of your choice, BEFORE you decide to buy their product). Added to all these, some companies will even provide you with local access numbers, which allow you to save even more on your international calls, than using the classic 0800 numbers. Competition gets stiffer and stiffer in the calling card industry, and to the end consumers like you and me, this can only mean more benefits, better deals, and better quality services.
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