Some would say that International Callback started it all. I would say that because I wrote the book on it, but others would say it because callback opened markets without regulatory approval, using their unique technical, marketing and entrepreneurial skills. Mamoon Rashid, CEO of Callture, and his partners are prime examples of creative thinking. When they started the company literally in a basement, they needed a way of testing the system at 3:00 AM. So, who did they call? A local pizza delivery restaurant! From this humble, but spicy beginning, Callture has moved on. Rashid shared his thoughts with us.



GR: So, you started offering callback from Cuba in 1997, right?

MR: There were a lot of American companies or European companies in Cuba that wanted to make long distance phone calls calling Europe. And at that time, I think it was $6.00 a minute to call to Europe from Cuba.



GR: Wow.

MR: So international callback was the only way they could survive. For them to send faxes or for calling their clients in European countries, callback was the only way.

This was around the early 2000s, and from then on we started to get clients internationally. We were always marketing online and we were very visible to some of the destinations or countries where low rates were key. We were very price cautious whenever offering our products to our clients.

Around the year 2003 or 2004, we started to get into the new Voice over IP. By the year 2006, we actually completed our main backbone into the voice side of things and that’s when it started to really exponentially grow from then on.



GR: How did you grow your distribution?

MR: We always had a reseller program and the way the international reseller, wholesale programs, work is they’re all prepaid anyway; you can’t trust anybody. And so that’s where it gave us the leverage of growing.

We also offered a different type of program, such as prepaid agent where we would set the rates and then they would basically sell the card in the market for callback or whatever.



GR: Is it a different market today, with VoIP?

MR: Yeah, today it’s a very different market. Some of our wholesale customers actually have their own switches as well. So they’re just interconnecting with us. We have some clients that are just peering with us and using our platform; and then we have many others that are directly connecting with us. We’re managing the switching side of not just the switch, because before it was just callback and you would just use callback or call through just as a regular phone. But, now there’s an integration happening between web sites, Voice over IP, and smartphones. Clients are mobile and they want to get access to data wherever they are.



GR: Sounds like you made a big transition. So, how is life after callback?

MR: Coming from our background, we had some attachment with the system and with the company. So, because it was homegrown, and we had the technology to manipulate and adapt to the new environment, we did that. As time progressed, our clients started offering other services that we provided, so the end consumer also migrated callback to call through or to Voice over IP.



GR: One of the things I preached years ago was that you have to have control over the technology so that you can have the flexibility to go where the business needs to go.

MR: We’ve seen TDM and Voice over IP and now we’re going to the third phase. Right now our clients can actually recharge, on the phone. The end user can go to a store and pick up a voucher, a promo card, and when they make a phone call, the account is instantaneously created. They can make a one minute call or $1.00 worth of phone calls and the system will automatically prompt them for their credit card information.

 Now there’s a lot of fraud as well, so we’ve actually created these technologies where we know their cell phone number because they’re calling through that, we can do the credit check.



GR: Oh I see, yeah.

MR: By adding these features to our system, we find that we’re creating a very loyal client base.



GR: Callback was not convenient by any means. We did everything in the world to try to make it convenient, but it was not convenient. But it was cheap. So now you’ve moved in to an era where now what you’re offering is convenient.

MR: That’s correct.



GR: That’s quite a transition.

MR: You’re probably one of the very few people who really understands callback. One of the things that is happening, at least in the Canadian market, is that some of the cell phone providers are offering unlimited incoming on your cell phone packages. There’s a new demand. People have approached us and said, “Hey you know what? Can you offer an unlimited callback solution?”



GR: Why would they want that?

MR: They could use callback to make outgoing phone calls. Clients that were in Africa or Middle East or South America, they’re now moving [to Canada] and they want to use callback to make local calls. And they were looking for $6.00, $7.00, or $10.00 monthly unlimited package deals.



GR: To do what, exactly?

MR: We created a mobile solution for Gabon or some country in Africa, whereby the callback would actually happen from Canada. But what they would do is they would put a GSM card, a local card, in to a device there. The user calls locally, enters the destination number, hangs up, and our system sends that information out through the Internet, right? And our system calls them back, and calls the other party as well.



GR: So where are we headed with resale and with wholesale services like that? Where do you see this going in the next three to five years or two to five years or whatever?

MR: Actually one of the things that’s happening, I guess with the entire industry, not only telecommunications, is a lot of people are becoming more mobile. They want to have information, it’s very dynamic. We find that our clients are really adapting to access to the information. They want to know, and the end user really needs to know they’re not being screwed for any billing or charges.



GR: Yeah.

MR: So giving all the information to them is creating loyalty. There are a large number of users who do not want to pay with credit cards; they seem to not feel comfortable, especially the immigrant community. They’d rather get a calling card or something that they pay with cash and just walk away with it.



GR: It’s interesting that callback has expanded and found new applications.

MR: There’s another service that we’re just testing that seems to have good potential. It’s a one dial service whereby you call a number. You assign a local number to a long distance number. Let’s say you’re calling to Mexico on a regular basis and you’re also calling somewhere else long distance, let’s say Europe.



GR: Ok.

MR: So, rather than calling a local number and then dialing your PIN code, then [your destination], what you do is dial a local number that automatically redirects your call to the long distance number. So we’ve created a list of DIDs (Direct Inward Dial) that anyone can call. So when you call one of the DIDs and your destination number, our system is going to remember that you have used this DID to call, let’s say the UK, so the next time you call the same DID, it automatically rings the same number in UK.

 So you can actually create an address book with local numbers, but in reality you’re actually making long distance calls.



GR: [Laugh]

MR: Yeah, so what’s happening is the convenience is again playing a big part. Because if you think about the way callback worked, it was very inconvenient.  But now we’re actually moving to the next level where it’s not even asking for your destination number anymore.



GR: [Laugh] So, I guess, after all these years, callback is still a viable option.

MR: Right.



Mamoon Rashid is CEO of Callture. Visit Callture online at www.callture.com.