VoIP Price War Declared 275
gardel writes "Voxilla reports that a VoIP price war was declared today. An announcement that AT&T would drop its prices for its CallVantage Service from $34.99 to $29.99 per month was followed quickly by an announcement that Vonage would drop the price on its unlimited calling plan to $25 a month from the previous $29.99.
Analysts say the price cuts show the VoIP market is not only competitive, but it's serious."
Any VoIP users? (Score:3, Funny)
Any reason why someone would pay want to pay more for AT&T?
Re:Any VoIP users? (Score:5, Insightful)
For us, Vonage is a household name, but not for many outside this circle.
Re:Any VoIP users? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Any VoIP users? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Any VoIP users? - Lingo (Score:5, Informative)
I have had absolutely no problems for the last two months. I get an amazing price - $19.99 for unlimited US, Western Europe & Canada, and the first three months absolutely free.
I can't imagine not having the convenience of VOIP. The online bonuses - email voicemail, detailed billing, etc are good too. Ob. referral - contact my id for a ref bonus:)
The rates to the rest of the world are good too
Re:Any VoIP users? (Score:2)
Re:Any VoIP users? (Score:2)
So i guess i have to turn off my iroffer bot
when i want to make phone calls....
3 Cheers for Free Markets (Score:4, Insightful)
If only all markets worked this way, I might be a Libertarian. . .
Re:3 Cheers for Free Markets (Score:5, Insightful)
It's kind of like gravity, you may not like it all the time, but it is a consistent phenomenon.
p.s. Markets are not a perfect way of allocating resources and capital, they are only the best way yet discovered by mankind.
Re:3 Cheers for Free Markets (Score:2)
Re:3 Cheers for Free Markets (Score:4, Insightful)
I think AT&T is just betting that people will pay more because they are familiar with the AT&T name, but isn't quite matching other companies deployment because they are taking VOIP cautiously and don't want to invest a whole lot until it becomes more profitable. Vonage, a startup, must invest whatever they can cause they have no other products or services to fall back on.
Still about $20 too much (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd much rather have more expensive calls, and a lower per-month fee. I have no trouble with paying 5 cents a minute to make a call; it's paying $25+ a month for no calls that pisses me off.
Re:Still about $20 too much (Score:5, Insightful)
I supposed the ideal would be having different packages -- the more you pay flat, the less you pay per minute..
What minority? (Score:2)
Most people go with POTS because for most the service is cheaper. Think about the projected market for VoIP, it's mostly cable internet users. For these users a budget VoIP service would be optimal, especially considering all the *cough* red tape *cough* taxes on POTS administered by the FCC.
Re:What minority? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Still about $20 too much (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Still about $20 too much (Score:2)
Re:Still about $20 too much (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Still about $20 too much (Score:2)
Re:Still about $20 too much (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Still about $20 too much (Score:3, Informative)
US Per Minute Rate:
2.95 / minute
If you want an Incoming phone number tied to your VoIP line:
Incoming phone numbers:
$7.99 / month (each)
Incoming rate:
0 / minute
If you don't have an incoming phone number, no monthly fees, only usage fees.
There are other that offer this also, like:
TerraCall http://www.terracall.com/
NikoTel http://www.nikotel.com/
Re:Still about $20 too much (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Still about $20 too much (Score:3, Interesting)
I use 'iconnecthere.com'. I pay $8.95/month + 3.5c per minute.
This $8.95 includes:
a pots-number in the city I choose
unlimited incoming calls
caller-id
voice-mail (that I can listen to on my mac)
Call quality is generally good, once in a while some latency is noticable. There is no 911 service that I'm aware of - it w
Re:Still about $20 too much (Score:2)
For instance, VoiceEclipse has a $12.95 Plan [voiceeclipse.com] for 500 minutes. Additional minutes are still only 3.5 cents per minute.
This is the plan I've got at home. Cut my bill from SBC in half.
I'd rather have a sliding scale like this ... (Score:2)
- A really low per-minute rate.
- A really low per-minute rate with a minimum charge for a (rather small) number of minutes (to cover connect costs).
- A small be-connected charge plus a really low per-minute rate.
- Any of the above with a per-minute rate that starts really low and then drops still further with large volume usage.
These plans with a big prepaid lump followed by a larger per-minute rate for overages, or a big prepaid flat-rate lump, are nuts. They don't t
Re:Still about $20 too much (Score:2)
Re:Still about $20 too much (Score:2)
This is because packet-switched networks are cheap. It costs too much to try and meter and bill the data (though Telstra persists) so now we're seeing a move towards a monthly access/subscription charge to use the n
Re:Still about $20 too much (Score:2, Interesting)
In short, you'd be surprised how few minutes you really do use.
On top of that you might want to consider Voicepulse connect because I now
Re:Still about $20 too much (Score:2)
I mean that I make a few dollars' worth of calls per month at my current long distance rates. The fixed monthly charge is way more.
Yes, that's the whole point. I pay $30 a month for phone service. That's $30 for zero calls, $30 and 5 cents for 1 minute of long distance calls, $30 and 10 cents for 2 minutes, and so on. It's the $30
I'm not sure I'm the majority (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I'm not sure I'm the majority (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm not sure I'm the majority (Score:2)
none, but that's not the point.
you buy a similar service, engineered for use as a device that allows you to walk around the country and speak from where you happen to wish. it being voip or not is highly irrelevant, technology underneath doesn't matter for the consumer.
(anyhow, for quite these reasons it's going to be extremely hard to make a service that would be cheaper than cellular phone networks
Re:I'm not sure I'm the majority (Score:2)
VoIP prices? (Score:2, Funny)
What about broadband? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What about broadband? (Score:2)
If it follows web hosting, maybe phone service will go down to $3/month? I totally don't get that, for $3 a month I wouldn't answer someone's pr
What's the 411 on VOIP? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What's the 411 on VOIP? (Score:2)
I have my cable modem and vonage box on a cheap UPS in case of power loss. Never seen it kick in though.
Re:What's the 411 on VOIP? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What's the 411 on VOIP? (Score:2)
How is the quality of the VOIP services?
They're as good as POTS. In some cases the signal is louder.
Are there delays? Dropouts?
I don't notice any.
Access to local 911?
Nope. But a gun is faster way of handling most emergencies.
What happens when the power goes out in my house?
Celebrate! You have a great excuse for not picking up the phone when someone tries to call.
Re:What's the 411 on VOIP? (Score:5, Funny)
I just hope I have enough ammo to shoot the fire out.
Re:What's the 411 on VOIP? (Score:2, Funny)
My first reaction is: like heart attacks?
But then, it does work for those! Makes the problem go away, in any case.
Re:What's the 411 on VOIP? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What's the 411 on VOIP? (Score:2)
So in a situation like Florida, it wouldn't even help to have a generator. Granted, getting hit by three hurricanes probably takes out the POTS an
Re:What's the 411 on VOIP? (Score:5, Informative)
Delays? Not really.
Dropouts? I get dropped more often by my cell provider than my VOIP provider. And yes, this includes standing still while on cell and having call dropped.
911? The industry is still figuring out how to support this properly. Some carriers sort of fake it today, but nobody really supports it "natively". This should change in the next 6 months as the 911 standard/method for VOIP carriers is being finalized in the next few months.
Power? I've got my cable modem and VOIP adapter on a UPS, so not much happens to me. Assuming that your DSL/Cable is still up in a power outage of course. If your net connection goes down, your phone goes down, might be power, might be your provider, might be the lawnmower.
Re:What's the 411 on VOIP? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What's the 411 on VOIP? (Score:2)
How is the quality of the VOIP services?: Pretty good... sometimes there's some complaints on the other end, and it is half-duplex, which means if you're not saying anything the person on the other end hears nothing, as opposed to just a soft hiss. Vonage had a pretty serious problem the other day which wasn't fixed until the end of the business day. Not good for any critical work.
Are there delays?: None in calls. The delay is the three days it took me to set up my Vonage
This is bad news... (Score:5, Funny)
What is clearly needed here is for the government to step in and start dividing up different areas of the country and assigning monopolies to the various telecom companies. I think we can all attest to the wonderful customer service and prices that a government sanctioned localized monopoly provides.
Re:This is bad news... (Score:2, Insightful)
In cases where monopolies naturally occur, a government monopoly is as good as it gets.
Energy deregulation was supposed to lower bills by adding competition to the equation. If you lived in California, prices skyrocketed due to the fact many energy producers (see Enron) were keeping production off-line in order to artifically inflate prices.
In cases like these, I like my gover
Re:This is bad news... (Score:2)
Nonsense. Prices skyrocketed primarily because it was a weird parody of a market rather than the real thing. Companies were forbidden by law to make any long-term contracts; they had to buy all power in a short-term spot market. Which naturally meant we
Re:This is bad news... (Score:2)
Vonage rocks (Score:5, Informative)
Even transferring my phone number was painless. I just faxed them a phone bill and they took care of the rest.
I was a little concerned with "voice lag", where you get that delay effect, but so far it's been unnoticeable. (but I also have a four megabit cable modem).
In short, Vonage has rocked so far. I had my doubts about VoIP, but no doubts any longer.
Re:Vonage rocks (dissenting opinion) (Score:5, Informative)
Also, AT&T's telephone adapter sits on the internet side of your home network - this allows the device to perform QoS functions by prioritizing the voice packets. Vonage's device sits behind your router and therefore can't do anything about a busy connection. There will inevitably be dropped calls if you use your internet connection heavily while on the phone.
Dave [runningland.com]
Re:Vonage rocks (dissenting opinion) (Score:2)
The new vonage connectors use the motorola that does the same thing.
Re:Vonage rocks (dissenting opinion) (Score:2, Informative)
Also, you can use just about any adapter on the market with either VOIP provider, in either configuration (with a little work). I have the Vonage adapter on the router (with QoS) side of the network and have had no quality issues.
Re:Vonage rocks (dissenting opinion) (Score:3, Informative)
That being said, it's not 100% service. But it's a lot, a lot less frustrating than using a cellphone.
+1 Same Here (Score:2)
It still sounds expensive to me. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It still sounds expensive to me. (Score:2)
It would be great for me if they just integrated it into my cell phone that I have to pay nearly a hundred bucks a month to use.
Re:It still sounds expensive to me. (Score:2)
"Your ISP called, they said you owe them $3000 in long distance internet access for September. They rattled off a huge list of out-of-town websites."
When you're calling over the internet, is there such a thing as long distance anymore?
Re:It still sounds expensive to me. (Score:2)
It's to the point now that I have to either increase my cell phone minutes, or get some form of landline (POTS or VoIP). It's looking heavily like that option is going to be VoIP since there's so many other advantages (extreme portability, blocking services, etc). VoIP is a bit cheaper than POTS, and I like not hav
Re:It still sounds expensive to me. (Score:2)
Re:It still sounds expensive to me. (Score:2)
If only the cable company would follow suit... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would love to see a drop in prices for my cable modem service however. Since i got a cable modem 4 years ago, my bill has gone up 5 bucks. Meanwhile, new subscribers get their first 6 months at 29.95. After that, if they call to cancel, they are given another 6 months at 29.95 (I know this for fact, my dad called to cancel his account, and they offered him this deal).
Meanwhile, a 4+ year subscriber like myself calls, and says they are thinking of switching to Earthlink from Roadrunner, since it is 3 bucks cheaper a month, and they give 6 months at 29.95, they do nothing to try and keep me as a customer.
Of course they don't tell you that it is essentially the same service, since Earthlink goes through the Time Warner lines. So techinically they are not losing the customer. Which begs the question, how can Earthlink charge less per month?
On top of which, Comcast and Time Warner are working on a coop bid for the remains of adelphia, which will only damage competition even further in the cable industry. *sigh*
sorry for the mostly off topic rant, but it bugs me to see services like this that can slash prices left and right in the name of competition, and the cable companies are still firm in their prices.
Didn't lower the costs for all plans.. (Score:3, Interesting)
For some reason, Vonage doesn't want to cut the price on the basic and intermediate plans
S
Duh (Score:2)
Why aren't you paying $25 for the premium plan?
Re:Duh (Score:2)
I'd save whatever money they drop on the intermediate plan. The main difference between that and the premium plan is the "allowed minutes".
S
Thumbs Up for Vonage (Score:3, Informative)
AT&T callvantage prices drop to $20... (Score:5, Informative)
I like price wars! (Score:5, Informative)
I'm basically happy with my Vonage service. Only a few minor complaints:
If Skype had a service that gives me a phone number and lets me receive calls I might switch to that. I also think that Skype has better sound quality, in my experience.
know what's funny (Score:2, Interesting)
The funny part?
It was free.
Re:know what's funny (Score:2)
I miss the good ol days sometimes.
Re:know what's funny (Score:2)
Dialpad [dialpad.com] is still around . . . but it costs money now . . .
Go Vonage! (Score:2)
Quality is good. You do have to keep an eye on what your upstream bandwidth is (we're at 128 kbps, and given that that's not guaranteed, I think we're pushing it a little at times), but a QoS router will take care of that nicely.
-Todd
what value is added for $25 per month? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:what value is added for $25 per month? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:what value is added for $25 per month? (Score:2)
I ask because I'm about to build an Asterisk box, and I really want 4 trunks and a dozen DIDs for a small office, delivered over IP.
HA HA! HA HA HEH! (Score:5, Interesting)
Now the price is going down to $25 a month? This is amazing. I was briefly considering building my own VoIP system [slashdot.org], this news makes it not the worth the trouble to go out and buy the parts I would need.
Now I have [slashdot.org] time [slashdot.org] to [slashdot.org] focus [slashdot.org] on [slashdot.org] all [slashdot.org] the [slashdot.org] other [slashdot.org] projects [slashdot.org] I've [slashdot.org] been [slashdot.org] thinking [slashdot.org] about [slashdot.org].
M
Re:HA HA! HA HA HEH! (Score:2)
Death to opacity!
Worth noting (Score:2)
Stunning savings on international. . . (Score:2, Informative)
(Pre-rave disclaimer, I'm unafilliated with Vonage except as a customer.)
I set up Vonage for our company - we're running 4 lines over a 5Mbps DSL with only occasional stuttering problems.
But the real benefit comes from the fact that although we are a small company, we have offices in five countries in Europe which we speak to on a daily basis. So, we signed up with Vonage for five new lines each tied to a New York number, then when we received the adapters we turned them right around and shipped them to t
Re:Stunning savings on international. . . (Score:2)
Big news, but not for the consumer. (Score:2)
Do you know why the Big Boys don't want to offer VoIP to residential customers? Because residential customers have no pull, we can't really pick and choose and tell our providers to hit the road, we are a Cash Cow stranded in their coporate corral. Big Biz customers CAN and DO dictate what they are willing to pay. Once again, Joe Blow
The internet is serious business! (Score:2)
VoicePulse has had those prices for a while (Score:3, Informative)
--
Josh
This market shouldn't even exist. (Score:2, Insightful)
$25/month is $25/month too much for VoIP (when you already have a cable modem).
What is it that we want to pay for exactly? Is it that we want to rent the VoIP hardware phone? Are we insecure putting our voicemail on our PCs at home instead of a SAN at some over-hyped corp?
Stop, think, repost.
Re:This market shouldn't even exist. (Score:2)
Re:This market shouldn't even exist. (Score:2)
European VoIP? (Score:2)
But now I travel a lot, and it would be convenient to have a VoIP service with a European POTS phone number. Does anyone in the
Have Vonage, will probably drop in favor of Skype. (Score:3, Interesting)
Now if only I could get some hardware (like my vonage/cisco ATA) which would do Skype instead of vonage....
I'll move to VOIP when... (Score:2)
- faxing - No efax for me, thanks!
- Brinks security system - keep the bad guys away!
- local number - I don't mind a number within my area code, just don't only give me one that's 60 miles away. Now all my local calls have LD calls to make...
$25? I smirk in your general direction! (Score:2, Informative)
I use onesuite.com [onesuite.com] and pay 2.5 cents a minute within the USA. I pay that same rate for calls to China.
That means that for your "competitive" $25 a month, I could make over 16 and a half hours of calls (to just about anywhere in the world... from any phone... at any time of day... on a regular, echo free phone line no less... and no I don't have to enter a bulky code every time I call... calls from my home automatically bypass the need for a code).
None of the options presented here are that cheap and con
Re:$25? I smirk in your general direction! (Score:2)
With Vonage I don't pay for local calls and long distance and that includes calls to Canada! I'll take unlimited to x.x/minute anyday. I never use a code aside from 1+AreaCode and my phone switch is my home phone company allowing me to take "local" calls from my broadband connection at home or from a hotel with broadband in Italy. I also use the options for virtual area codes and elminated large chunks out of the phone bill for my family. All these benefits PLUS the packages you pay out
How come no mention of packet 8? (Score:3, Informative)
Vonage user past 5 months (Score:5, Informative)
Overall, I'd give it a B+. I've probably saved $100 or so over the past couple of months, at the expense of a really bad headache. Still, if I ever go anywhere I like to know I can take my Vonage box with me and have my number be there.
Re:Lingo (Score:2)
Re:And... (Score:2)
Napster (Score:2)
There are servers you can run easily on a home linux box. If you have net access there is no need of a phone co.
The tough part is to get a critical mass. Once you have lots of people with phone servic
Re:broadvoice is still cheaper.. (Score:2)
Re:Why have yet another service? (Score:2)
That's it, end of story. Consider it a tax for being on the bleeding edge of technology until the rest of the world catches-up to you.
When the rest of the world does catch up, they'll hawk the rental of phone switch services as a con