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VoIP Price War Declared
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."
Even social democrats like myself can appreciate good free-market competition like this.
If only all markets worked this way, I might be a Libertarian. . .
The problem I have with my phone service is that the fixed per-month charge is about 5x what I pay for the actual calls I make.
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.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
How is the quality of the VOIP services? Are there delays? Dropouts? Access to local 911? What happens when the power goes out in my house?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Personally, I'm against all this competition.
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.
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.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I realize Americans have the all-you-can-eat mentality more so than the rest of the world, but is an unlimited domestic long-distance plan really the only way they can compete? I don't make enough long distance calls to justify that much for land-line voice service, and I have broadband. I suppose it's cheaper than a POTS line plus unlimited long distance, but of the people with broadband, I don't see a huge market to compete within. Please enlighen me if this is really a fast-growing market segment, because I just don't see it.
AT&T is a huge behemoth of a company, that isn't going anywhere. Vonage is a start-up.
For us, Vonage is a household name, but not for many outside this circle.
I have considered vonage, because of the low international rates, but I don't want to dedicate a certain portion of my bandwidth for my telephone service. My upstream is hosed enough as it is, let alone dedicating part of it to phone use.
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.
I use CallVantage. I've read many reviews that compare to Vonage and other competitors. A good portion of the reviews have said that they think CallVantage is less prone to distortion than competing services. I believe it is in part because the TA has to sit directly behind the cable modem and priortizes the packets. Apparently a recent firmware revision lets the TA sit behind routers, but I haven't moved mine. I don't know if this negates the positive audio qualities that reviews have cited.
They have invented them. They're called cell phones.
for the first 6 months, $34.99 thereafter. Thanks slashdot submitter for that fully objective and accurate portrayal of pricing.
AccountKiller
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.
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
When I signed up for Vonage, it cost me $40 a month which was a huge savings off the $60 a month I was paying for traditional service.
Now the price is going down to $25 a month? This is amazing. I was briefly considering building my own VoIP system, this news makes it not the worth the trouble to go out and buy the parts I would need.
Now I have time to focus on all the other projects I've been thinking about.
M
I've recently switched from Vonage to AT&T. The call quality on Vonage was not very good. There is often a nagging local echo and there were several times that I had to reboot the telephone adapter to get it to function. This was unacceptable. Everything about AT&T's service has been better so far: call quality, customer service (much lower hold times!), and more features (locate me!).
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
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.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.