IDT Looses Appeal on Lawsuit by Former Executive

Alfred West, the current President & CEO of Xchange Telecom, Inc., had originally filed suit against IDT for what he claims was a breach of contract when he was forced out after only 6 months of employment (Feb 2001 to August 2001). West presented a handwritten agreement that he had signed by Howard Jonas which was reportedly to guarantee him 15 million over the life of the deal. It appears as if West, a former executive at Econophone and Viatel was given the promise of emplyment in exhange for brinign his contacts and much of the Viatel buisness and property rights on board. From what IDT contended, Wright falsely promised the rights to things he did not have any ownership of so therefore they let him walk and was the preliminary defense IDT used.The original decision was in favor of IDT claiming that he did not have sufficient right to be paid the remaining un-worked period of the contract but a court of appeals has just overturned this decision and sided in favor of Mr. West. If all stands up IDT will be forced to pay up.

To view the full court of appeals document click here

Blackstone Got Out of Trouble

Blackstone, a telecom company, has successfully fought the fine that the FCC brought against them. On February, Blackstone was charged with a $20,000 fine for failure to register with the FCC and pay the appropriate USF (Universal Service Fee). The Bureau is claiming they have made repeated requests of Blackstone to get in line and register but have received no response from Blackstone and no cooperation.

Blackstone apparently ignored requests from the FCC asking them to file and make certain types of paperwork available because they felt they are not a service provider, just a phone card distributor, so therefore there was no need to file. Like many other prepaid calling cards distributors, they have made claims as such to their end users (common practice).

While the $20,000 fine may not look like a lot, the amount was actualy increased significantly from the base fine for this type of infraction due to Blackstone's complete lack of response or cooperation with the Bureau. However, Blackstone has since provided the paper work proving that they are not a long distance carrier, just a distributor, and as a result the $20,000 fine has been removed and the matter dropped.

Source:
http://www.fcc.gov/eb/Orders/2007/DA-07-3235A1.html

Pizza & Phone Card Combo

A pizza chain out of Texas, Pizza Patron, will begin selling unlimited Mexico calling cards in all of their restaurants. The service is provided by BlagCard(TM) and the calls are mainly carried by at&t. Pizza Patron currently has over 60 stores in Texas as well as in a few surrounding states, with another 40 or so chains set to open within the next year.

Cards will be sold in $5, $10 and $30 denominations, delivering either 2, 7 or 30 days of unlimited calling to Mexico.

While the press release does not say if these cards will be available with delivery of a pizza, it is an interesting concept and truly a unique partnership the likes that this industry has never seen before.

Source:
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-23-2007/0004630312&EDATE=