One real phone number that rings the whole household, on the phones everyone already carries. The old landline, without the landline.
Remember when one number reached the whole house? Mobile phones broke that. SatComms Connect puts it back.
Your cellphone number goes on every form, website and delivery. Kids' calls land on a parent's phone. The domestic worker uses her personal number for the house. The gate intercom can ring only one cellphone, and if that person is in a meeting, nobody answers.
The family has one home number. Callers dial it like any normal number. It rings Mom, Dad, the kids and the house helper all at once, or lets the caller choose who: "press 1 for Mom, 2 for Dad". Everyone answers in the app on their own phone.
Each of these works with the app as it is today, unless marked otherwise.
Every family phone rings at the same time, like the old landline. Whoever picks up first takes the call and the rest stop ringing.
Prefer privacy? The caller hears "press 1 for Mom, 2 for Dad, 3 for Sam" and reaches the right person directly.
Add her as a family member and she answers the house line on her own phone. Take her off the number whenever you need to. No second phone to buy.
Give the family number to banks, shops, estate agents and sign-up forms instead of your cellphone. Calls still reach you, but your real number stays private.
A number for the children that rings their phones, and a parent's too if you like. They get a number to give out without handing over yours. Extra numbers are not priced yet.
Set the intercom to dial the family number and the visitor rings everyone, not one cellphone. Works with any intercom that can dial a phone number. Not yet tested with a specific model.
If nobody answers in the app within 15 seconds (phone off, no data), the call rings their normal cellphone instead.
Grandma, the school and the plumber dial an ordinary number from any phone. Only the family needs the app.
With the optional app-to-app add-on, family members can call each other through the app at no per-minute charge.
The school only has the family number. It rings Mom, Dad and the nanny together. The nanny is at home and answers.
The driver presses the intercom. It dials the family number, so Dad answers from the lounge while Mom is in the car.
The gym and the insurance quote get the family number. Sales calls ring the house line, not Mom's personal cell.
| Share one cellphone | Give out everyone's number | SatComms Connect | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One number reaches the family | Only one person | No | No | Yes |
| Rings everyone together | No | No | No | Yes |
| Callers need an app | No | No | Yes | No |
| Your personal number stays private | No | No | No | Yes |
| Add or remove a person | Hard | Hard | Easy | Easy |
Satellite broadband is coming to South African homes. It sells internet, not a phone line. That's the gap SatComms Connect fills.
A Starlink or Amazon Leo dish gives a household internet and nothing else. There's no landline and no number. Calls have to travel over the internet, which is exactly how this app works. We give those homes a real number that rings in the app.
Amazon Leo's South African launch targets farms, small towns and rural homes without reliable internet. Those are often the same places with no copper landline and patchy cellphone signal at the house. A number that works over any internet connection suits them.
The family number belongs to SatComms Connect, not to a line or an internet provider. A family can move from fibre to wireless to satellite, or to a farm, and keep the same number. Nothing is re-issued.
Every satellite installation is a household that has just been told it has no phone line. A SatComms Connect plan is a natural add-on for installers and resellers to sell alongside the hardware.
We'd rather you know exactly where the app is today.
Callers use real phone numbers. The app replaces the handset.
Each customer gets a South African phone number. Anyone can dial it from a normal phone. Callers need nothing installed.
Twilio routes the call to the SatComms app on the right person's phone (by menu: "press 1 for Mom", or everyone at once). If the app doesn't answer within 15 seconds, it falls back to their cellphone so no call is lost.
Members dial real numbers from the app's keypad. The call goes through Twilio to the phone network and is shown to the other person as the shared number.
Each plan includes outbound minutes, plus the same number of inbound minutes. Outbound is blocked when used up. Inbound keeps working up to 3x the allowance, so a caller is never cut off for a small overrun.
Everything from here down is for the numbers: what it costs us, what we charge, and what's left.
Twilio's live South Africa rates, converted at R16.57 per US dollar.
| What happens | Twilio rate | Cost to us |
|---|---|---|
| Outbound call to a SA mobile (app leg + phone network) | $0.0539/min | R0.89/min |
| Outbound call to a SA landline | $0.0402/min | R0.67/min |
| Inbound call delivered to the app | $0.0147/min | R0.24/min |
| Inbound call forwarded to a cellphone (fallback only) | $0.0606/min | R1.00/min |
| App-to-app call between teammates | $0.0080/min | R0.13/min |
| The shared phone number itself | $1.50/month | R24.86/month |
Monthly plans. Each includes the same number of inbound minutes as outbound minutes. Google Play takes a bigger cut (15% vs about 3%), so the same price buys slightly fewer minutes there.
150 outbound + 150 inbound minutes
(130 + 130 if bought through Google Play)
280 outbound + 280 inbound minutes
(240 + 240 if bought through Google Play)
410 outbound + 410 inbound minutes
(350 + 350 if bought through Google Play)
Unlimited app-to-app calling between teammates. Not yet priced in the system.
One-off extra minutes when a plan runs out mid-month. Prices not yet set.
Payment fees: iKhokha takes about 3.28% (2.85% plus VAT). Google Play takes 15% (small-business rate).
Per customer, per month, after Twilio, number rental and payment fees. "Typical" is our assumption: half the outbound minutes used, 80% of calls to mobiles, a quarter of inbound used.
| Plan | Paid via | Typical use | Outbound maxed | Everything maxed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter R229.99 | iKhokha (150 min) | R125 (54%) | R64 (28%) | R27 (12%) |
| Google Play (130 min) | R108 (47%) | R55 (24%) | R23 (10%) | |
| Family R399.99 | iKhokha (280 min) | R226 (57%) | R112 (28%) | R44 (11%) |
| Google Play (240 min) | R199 (50%) | R101 (25%) | R42 (11%) | |
| Plus R569.99 | iKhokha (410 min) | R328 (57%) | R160 (28%) | R60 (11%) |
| Google Play (350 min) | R290 (51%) | R147 (26%) | R62 (11%) |
Monthly profit at four sizes. Each assumes the customers split 60% Starter, 30% Family and 10% Plus, with 30% paying through Google Play and the rest through iKhokha. Average revenue works out to about R315 per customer per month.
| Customers | Revenue / month | Light use | Typical use | Everyone maxes out | Typical, per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | R3,780 | R2,478 (66%) | R1,979 (52%) | R339 (9%) | R23,750 |
| 100 | R31,500 | R20,650 (66%) | R16,500 (52%) | R2,830 (9%) | R197,900 |
| 300 | R94,500 | R61,940 (66%) | R49,490 (52%) | R8,480 (9%) | R593,800 |
| 500 | R157,500 | R103,230 (66%) | R82,480 (52%) | R14,130 (9%) | R989,700 |
The "typical" figures assume customers use well under their allowance. This is the reasoning, not measured data, so we'll replace it with real numbers once customers are live.
A family number gets the school, the doctor, deliveries, grandparents and the occasional sales call. Those calls are short. A busy call centre would burn minutes; a home does not.
The Starter plan's 150 outgoing and 150 incoming minutes, spread over a family of four, is about 37 minutes each per month, or roughly one minute a day each. Every plan is the same: a few minutes a day per person.
The app doesn't replace anyone's mobile contract. Most of a person's calls, and nearly all of their chatting, still go through their own phone, their bundled minutes and WhatsApp. Only calls on the family line use the allowance.
When the whole house rings at once, we're only charged for the person who answers, and only for the time they're on the call. Unanswered phones and ringing time are free, so ring-all doesn't multiply the cost.
The worst-case column means the household makes every outgoing minute and receives every incoming minute, in the same month, every month. On Starter that is 300 minutes of talking on the home line, month after month.
Each month starts fresh. Minutes a family didn't use are not banked, and they cost us nothing. That is why light use is our most profitable case.
Every figure above uses Twilio's standard pay-as-you-go rates. At scale, we can negotiate lower ones.
We pay Twilio's public list price on every minute. That's the right starting point for a new product and it's what all the profit figures assume.
Twilio offers volume discounts and negotiated committed-use pricing, where we agree to a monthly spend in return for lower rates. The percentage is set in a quote from Twilio sales, so we can't know it until we ask.
Switch Telecom has invited us to discuss its reseller and wholesale programme for the South African phone-network part of the cost. That could lower the same costs from another direction.
| Customers | Twilio call charges / month | If we save 10% | If we save 20% | Extra profit per year (10% / 20%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | R10,400 | +R1,040 | +R2,080 | R12,500 / R24,900 |
| 300 | R31,100 | +R3,110 | +R6,230 | R37,400 / R74,700 |
| 500 | R51,900 | +R5,190 | +R10,380 | R62,300 / R124,500 |