Our business: reducing telecom bills!

Budget Telecom is a leading European low-cost telecommunications service service provider. The company is positioned across the whole range of low-cost telecommunications services: landline and mobile telephony, national and international, standard or VoIP as well as a range of low-price Broadband services, thus providing solutions in each market segment. The service provider makes telecommunications services more transparent, simpler, more reliable and cheaper for consumers.

For Budget Telecom it is the only way to build up an honest, trust-based relationship with our customers, while also ensuring our commitment towards reducing telecom bills.

In order to satisfy the needs of as many consumers as possible, Budget Telecom provides a comprehensive range of innovative, low-cost services, with three different ranges.

Budget Telecom provides a telephony offering and Internet access designed for the general public. The Internet offering, Budget Access, provides specialised broadband in non-debundled areas. In CPS, Budget Telecom provides one of the most inexpensive unlimited calls plans on the market (“No Limit” at €12.90/month) and calls to mobiles at 1 cent per minute (“Eco Mobile”), all of which is in a simple and economical mindset for the end user, satisfying the following specifications:

With Budget Mobile, Budget Telecom has become a fully-fledged mobile service provider and has a discount pay-as-you-go mobile offer to call France and the whole world from 0.19 €/min.

With Club Budget Mobile, a hour plan-type offering, but without the hour plan, calls between Club Members are half price (€0.095€/min., in other words the cheapest price on the market for calls from a mobile)

This offering is comprised of several services which may meet the needs of all types of users: foreign residents and families expatriated in Europe or European residents abroad.

A “virtual phone card” to make calls as and when you feel like it throughout the world from a landline phone or a mobile from Mainland France and the French Overseas Departments, Spain, Belgium, Italy and the rest of the world (in callback mode). The benefits of this service are:

Cheaper, easier and providing better quality than the VoIP offerings, international telephony via special numbers enables users to phone throughout the world for the price of a local call. The benefits of this service include:

The first virtual phone booth: YetIP. Unmatched rates lower than those of the big PC-to-Phone market rates.

This offering has been complementing the general public solutions since 2003. It is segmented into a telecom offering for each type of company and an offering intended for telecom professionals: callshops (virtual PABX systems) and service providers (VoIP, callback, cards, etc.) in France and abroad.

This is a telecom package comprised of landline, mobile and Internet access designed for professional people, SOHO, and small SMEs to enable them to take advantage of attractive rates tailored to meet their requirements and get the best price when phoning in France and throughout the whole world.

Budget Telecom provides comprehensive turnkey solutions for callshop managers both in France and abroad:

All the Budget Telecom offerings (pay-as-you-go, callshops, callback, VOIP, etc.) are available on a white label basis for service provider partners.

The company started up its business as a website comparing telephony offerings (www.budgetelecom.com) to become an alternative low-cost service provider, while also providing innovative services. The company’s flexibility and its strongly ability to adapt to change have enabled it to gain a foothold in international niche markets very quickly, both in France and abroad.

BUDGET TELECOM has become a major player in the low-cost telephony segment in just a few years.

The company is made up of genuine telecom and Internet specialists. Its two founders - Khaled ZOURRAY and Pascale GREPPO – both possess genuine expertise and know their line of business inside out: Khaled ZOURRAY has been a telecom specialist for over 20 years and graduated from ENST (Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications [Higher National Telecommunications School]), while Pascale GREPPO is more specifically involved as Administrative and Financial Director.

In October 2000, BUDGET TELECOM launched the first rechargeable phone cards on the Internet called “Last Minutes” through the www.lesminutes.com.

This service, based on the innovative concept of buying and selling on unsold telephone minutes from major international service providers via the Internet, provides the possibility of calling from any landline or mobile phone, at low-cost rates, to over 300 destinations in the world.

The company’s continued growth enabled it to quickly gain the confidence of solid industrial and financial partners: ANVAR, the French innovation agency, FRONTIERS CAPITAL, a British investment fund affiliated to The Phone House and the Groupe Banque Populaire through its investment fund, SPEF VENTURE.

BUDGET TELECOM launched its low-cost telephony service in Spain.

BUDGET TELECOM won the Grand Prix des Trophées de la Nouvelle Economie created by the Cegetel Group, l'Express and the Journal du Net.

The www.lesminutes.com site was rated Number1 for the prices of products following a major Quality-Satisfaction survey conducted by FIA-NET, the Internet Insurer for numerous merchant sites.

2002 was very much a year of change. BUDGET TELECOM turned its charter telephony service into a fully-fledged service provider business by offering competitive prices combined with new generation methods via the Internet and added value services.

BUDGET TELECOM innovated in November 2003 by offering its new general public telephony service en CPS with billing per second from the first second, without connection fees, time credit or hidden costs and free short calls (www.budget-telecom.fr).

2003 also saw the beginning of the diversification of BUDGET TELECOM to the business market with the launch in September 2003 of its innovative virtual PABX offering dedicated to callshops: CallShop France (www.callshop-france.com).

In the same year, the BUDGET TELECOM pay-as-you-go telephony service became available throughout the world thanks to Expat Telecom (www.expat-telecom.com).

In October 2003, BUDGET TELECOM was awarded the “Grand Prix de l'Entrepreneur - Entreprise de l'avenir” (Mediterranean Region) by the l'Entreprise magazine. This prize was awarded to highlight BUDGET TELECOM’s performance levels and the quality of management.

BUDGET TELECOM launched “NO LIMIT” the cheapest unlimited hours plan on the market at just € 9.90 / month within the framework of its general public CPS landline service.

BUDGET TELECOM innovated by launching a new service this time for businesses: extending its fixed telephony tow companies through its “Budget Telecom Business” enabling SHOO and small SMEs to significantly cut their telecom bills.

BUDGET TELECOM enriched its Callshop service with a VoIP offering.

In March 2005, BUDGET TELECOM launched a new hard discount international telephony service in France, Spain, and Italy called “Les Minutes Direct” (www.lesminutesdirect.com).

In September 2005, BUDGET TELECOM won the Master de la rentabilité de la Lettre M (every year the Masters de la Lettre M acknowledges the best-performing companies in the Languedoc-Roussillon area of France).

In the twentieth Top 100 of independent companies, champions of profitability and growth run by the monthly magazine L'Entreprise, Budget Telecom came first in the Languedoc-Roussillon region, 2nd for the whole of Southern France and 8th for France as a whole.

In October 2006, BUDGET TELECOM celebrated the success of being admitted on Alternext.

In January, the reference low cost service provider, in line with its niche(s), strategy launched an offer for English-speaking expatriates based in France: telephony, Internet access and mobile telephony packages tailored to their needs, under the Teleconnect trade name.

BUDGET TELECOM played the card of the major media with sharply-targeted actions, on France Television a poster campaign in the Paris Metro.

In July 2007, BUDGET TELECOM featured once again in the Top 100 independent companies, champions of profitability and growth ran by the monthly magazine, L'Entreprise.

In September 2007, BUDGET TELECOM underlined its MVNO strategy by launching Budget Mobile, a pay-as-you-go mobile telephony offer targeted at the ethic community markets.

In October 2007, faithful to its niche strategy, launched a new service for French expatriates abroad called Direct Appel, enabling them to benefit from a call number in France free of charge to contact them wherever they are in the world.

Budget Telecom bought Talk Talk, a fully-owned subsidiary of The Phone House France, and Phenix Telecom International (PTI), number1 in the Asian community in France. By doing so, Budget Telecom killed two birds with one stone by doubling its general public audience in France and reinforcing its position as an service provider for foreign communities living in France.

Our tenth year of trading!

Budget Telecom started the year with 200,000 active customers (January 2009), and confirmed its position as a genuine European reference in the low-cost telephony service provider field.

Over the last six years, BUDGET TELECOM has proven its ability to meet the requirements of its customers by offering them the best deal, at the lowest cost… and at the right time.