The United States Post office should be using La Poste as a model to bring in more revenue. I’m in Paris for a few days and had to pick up a sim card in order to stay in touch with my wife who would be in a different location in the city for most of the day. Picking up sims overseas always reminds me how messed up the system in the US is. Phone calls are dirt cheap over here.
We asked at the front desk at the hotel to find out where to go to pick up some sim cards. She suggested we go to the end of the street to the post office. I thought that was strange but when we got there sure enough they sold sim cards. Their own sim cards at that. The last time I picked up a sim card when we were traveling overseas was in London. Bought a Lycra SIM card for a wh
ole 1 pound. Super cheap rates.
Ideally getting a data sim card and using Skype would have been my preferred choice but doing it this way with just voice is fine. We paid about €9 for each sim card which comes loaded with €5 of credit. Like all European countries incoming text and voice is free. We then pay 10 cents per outgoing minute and text. Ofcourse we are using texting more than the calling. These are the same prepaid rates I pay on St Thomas. When we have internet we do use Google hangouts to communicate.
I don’t think the post office legally can or would have the management experience to offer up a MVNO but it sure would be a great revenue stream. Just think, every single post office in the United States could be a potential store and top up center. Top Up is the term used to reload money on a prepaid SIM card. I would
definitely insist they go GSM and not CDMA but other than that I think that it would be a great idea.