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AOL Canada To Offer VoIP
Lev13than writes "The Globe and Mail reports that AOL Canada will today announce plans to launch a VoIP service, starting with Toronto and expanding to the rest of the country by the end of March. It will be the first AOL unit to sell VoIP anywhere in the world. "TotalTalk" will sell for $30 a month after a three-month discount, including unlimited local calling, 60 minutes of North American long distance, call display, call waiting, three-way calling and call forwarding. A premium service that includes 1,000 minutes a month of North American long-distance time will sell for $45 a month after a three-month rebate.
In comparison, Bell service in Toronto costs about $50/month for similar features and a few hours of Canada-only long distance. I wonder if this will be available over AOL Dial-up?"
In comparison, Bell service in Toronto costs about $50/month for similar features and a few hours of Canada-only long distance. I wonder if this will be available over AOL Dial-up?"
Are those in American or Canadian dollars? 30CAD is only 24.39USD.
$24USD sounds more in line with what US based VoIP companies like Lingo charge.
Not likely. One reason they probably picked Canada was because we have a pretty high % of homes with DSL/Cable. Sure it's no Korea, but I don't know too many people here that still use dialup.
Wow a phone line in a phone line. How usefull?
you can't claim that the difference between 500 and 700 minutes costs them (and hence, me) another 40$ a month.
If I make a phone call from my VoIP phone to a regular land-line phone, then at some point my provider has to dial a real number on their end and connect me. The more I talk, the more I'm using one of their modems, or PBX cards, or whatever (I'm not an expert), which means they have to have more equipment to service my needs. Multiply this by thousands of users and it does cost them more.
Charging me based on usage is reasonable.
calling from voip to regular phones or just other voip?
if its voip to regular land lines, fair enough. If it's voip to voip, what's the point of paying them when we can get them free like skype?
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I wonder if this will be available over AOL Dial-up?
Yes, but only if you talk very s..l..o..w..l..y..
I guess some people might get excited about this because they want this service for their regular phones, but I prefer to use Skype or SIP clients on my PC with a headset.
I'm also considering buying an IP phone. Both options have a $0 monthly subscription cost and $0 for infinity minutes if I make calls to other IP phones or PC clients (as is the case for most of my overseas relatives).
The tech "savvier" will always beat the curve.
Using a link from http://www.redflagdeals.com/deals/main.php/ongoing /, you can get a Comwave VoIP package for $9.95 Canadian with a Long distance package for $2.95 Canadian. Those prices seem a little more reasonable than the AOL package.
They take something good (VOIP), cross it with AOL users, and add completely arbitrary pricing
What is funny is the fact that a local call is pretty much arbitrary. You could be in Vancouver or Tokyo, order the service and say you are local to anywhere you damn well please.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Sorry to pick nits, but shouldn't it be COL?
Is it me or did anyone notice that AOL is just like a virus you have something good the next thing you know AOL has it as well, and if your a customer all your getting is a broken product, I can just see it now when you sign the contract what they don't yell you that there gonna sell your phone number to companies for advertising, and signing the contract makes everything legal.
Um, they have that, it's called a phone. Seriously, on a 33.6Kbps link, what kind of quality are you going to get? Speak not to me of codecs - you're too close to the bone bandwidth-wise. Latency and low bandwidth would kill it. VoIP on broadband, like I have here, however, works gre...BUFFERING...
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Lets see, I'm going to make a phone call by dialing my ISP over PSTN and then "tunnel" VoIP on top of that? So what the hell is the point of VoIP then!? I might as well get dial-up over my high-speed internet connection. The point of VoIP is to get rid of PSTN, not layer on top of it. If you want to make phone calls over the internet, you can use a 1995 application called Internet Telephone. You obviously don't know what VoIP is or what it's about.
I thought the point of VoIP was to eliminate the "local" nature of the calls, since they're not routed through as many traditional public exchanges.
Maybe they just have better deals with the Toronto telcos.
Even if you convert to US$, it is a bit high. Not as bad as Comcast is planning to charge for their VOIP, though.
For example, I use Lingo (http://www.lingo.com) and pay $20 for unlimited calls inside the US and to a few places in Western Europe. Mainly I just call the U.K., and had 6200 minutes logged there last month. And the company that owns lingo (Primus) isn't too tiny either...not that I'm saying AOL is.
Golly gee, I can see that already.
*ring ring*
(luser A picks up)
Voice over IP should cost LESS not a bit less, it's not like they have to built a network or something, they get some servers gear configure it the way they want and the trick is done. 30$ a month is what I pay here in Quebec and I consider it expensive. VOIP for 30$ a month, it should cost that a year with NO long distance fee AT ALL, since no, absolutely no extra charge is placed upon the company when you make a long distance, you don't use more of their network you just connect an IP to another IP, you do not use the phone system of another country, you do not have to pay them to communicate on their land, that's the internet, it's would be like my ISP charging me more to connect to a japanese website!
This is timeless though, a technology is proposed, supposedly it will revolutionize the field for which it has been concieve because it is so unexpensive, so cheap. A company launch the service with the new technology and instead of the consummer paying less it's the company that makes more profit, VOIP, banking machines...
capitalism really sucks
Sorry to pick nits, but shouldn't it be COL?
Ummm... no. You know, America is the name of a continent.
I give you a few examples for countries on this continent: Brazil, Canada, Chile, Mexico, the USA (United States of America).
I don't need a signature.
just a thought: packet 8 already offers a much cheaper solution for canadians (and americans). unlimited calls to canada and the us for 19.95 USD a month. includes caller id, 3 way calling, etc. cheaper and probably better solution than A-Oh-hell....
You've got mail, ay?
Wouldn't voip be kind of pointless over dail up? I mean think about it, you're calling a phone number to get internet, to then call another number. voip at home makes the most sense with cable and no traditional home phone line, even voip with dsl is weird. If you're already paying for telephone service, why pay again?
I don't get it.
AOL also exists in Germany. Heck, they even have a stadium of one the bigger soccer teams named after them.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
Also, for comparison, Vonage Canada is offering 500 minutes to North America for $19.99 and $34.99 unlimited in-province plus 500 long distance minutes. For $5 more, I think a lot of people will be claiming the extra 440 minutes of long distance. Oh, and at $45, Vonage CA is FULL unlimited, not capped at 100 minutes long distance.
Seen any BadMarketing lately?
"Charging me based on usage is reasonable."
Actually it is a cash grab plain and simple. To deny this is to deny the fundamentals of capitalism. The additional costs are marginal at best and a cost of doing business.
Other companies do it cheaper and unlimited to boot.
Rogers has a "Better Bundle Deal" that gives you 15% off all their services if you have two or more services with them. If you are a "Better Bundle Deal" subscriber, then you qualify to get 1000 anytime minutes in North America per month for $0.05/minute up to a maximum of $5/month. The first 100 minutes are billed at the $0.05 rate, and the next 900 are free. After the 1000 minutes are used up, you get a rate of $0.05/minute. Probably the best deal I found so far. It lowered my Bell bill by $70/month!
Actually, AOL has been offerring VOIP through its Time Warner division for a while now. Read this press release, dated January of this year:
8 12 ,670217,00.html
http://www.timewarner.com/corp/newsroom/pr/0,20
They've been running commercials for it in Houston for months.
Oh it's not branded as VoIP, but I bet the LD that is done through this service is conducted through VoIP. I originally thought VoIP would be competetive, but actually it seems as if everyone's jumping on the VoIP bandwagon.
I can see it now: Hundreds of CDs floating around offering "1,000 Minutes of Long Distance Free!"
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
I swear, the people on Slashdot who attack market systems are almost as bad as the people who defend them! Let's cover some basic ground, shall we?
...it should cost that a year with NO long distance fee AT ALL, since no, absolutely no extra charge is placed upon the company when you make a long distance, you don't use more of their network you just connect an IP to another IP.
1) Voice over IP should cost LESS not a bit less, it's not like they have to built a network or something
How much do you know about running a VOIP business? Have you been running models that demonstrate the enormous cost difference? I bet if you did, you'd notice that ISP-level providers generally pay backbone carriers on a flat-rate PLUS a per-byte basis, not the simple flat rates like home users pay to ISPs. So if AOL customers are sending shitloads of packetized voice (potentially a LOT more bytes than they send now), AOL will have to charge accordingly to pay for it. Not to mention the fact that AOL will definitely have to purchase tons of new capacity from carriers, which increases the flat-rate portion of their costs.
2)
I'm sorry. You obviously misunderstand VOIP technology something awful. If a VOIP customer wants to talk to another VOIP customer, you are mostly correct about how you don't have to go through any phone systems or toll points. But if a VOIP customer wants to chat with a non-VOIP customer, how the FUCK is that call supposed to get into the POTS system without talking to the regular local phone company in the called area? So a VOIP provider has to maintain a VOIP gateway and a bank of outgoing phone lines in EVERY SINGLE local calling area so that its customers can reach those areaa without incurring phone toll charges once the calls leave the Internet. Now wouldn't that be kind of expensive? Especially when AOL has 30 million customers, a lot of whom probably might want to call any given area code at one time? I pity the fool ISP that gives too many busy signals to its customers.
Oh, and don't forget that VOIP gateways have to function the other way, too. How does a non-VOIP person call you, the VOIP customer? Well, your VOIP provider maintains a phone line connected to a VOIP gateway in the area code that you selected when you signed up with them, so that calls from the POTS system will be routed to that area code, and then into the VOIP gateway. Guess what? Phone lines cost money.
3) A company launch the service with the new technology and instead of the consummer paying less it's the company that makes more profit, VOIP, banking machines...
First of all, VOIP does promise to reduce the costs of consumer telephone service, but it takes time for the market to adjust to new products like this. Once VOIP gets generally accepted as a drop-in substitute for residential POTS service, the available ISPs will grow in number and customer base, and VOIP service will become just another commodity. VOIP providers will start competing with each other, and you'll see prices dropping down to the efficiency point (the price at which the business is just barely making enough profit to keep it in that market).
And for the record, banking machines HAVE reduced consumer banking costs, but in a way that you have to actually THINK about to notice. See, since consumer use of ATMs has made it possible for banks to serve a lot more customers with a lot less employees, banks have been able to either reduce costs by controlling staff (firing, or just hiring freezes) or add more paying customers to their clientele without having to pay more staff to service them. Either way, the banks have lowered their costs.
Joe Consumer sees a reduced cost, also: the banks see opportunities to undercut each others' prices (lowering or eliminating banking fees, offering higher interest rates) and gain market share, which they do. In the process, the price to the consumer drops toward the efficiency point.
It is a HELPFUL t
Who outside the US would use a service with such a USA-centric name? I mean AOL Canada, AOL Europe, etc. I would think the name alone would turn off most non-Americans. Not because of anti-Bush or anything just because it *sounds* like you'll get tech support 9-5 EST, in English only, etc.
No thanks AOL. I'll keep using Skype http://www.skype.com/ as I can already do VOIP to landlines for about 2 cents a minute to almost anywhere in the world.
Primus VOIP can be a much better deal, depends if you care about features... if you load your phone up with every bell and whistle under the sun they it'll be around the same price but with a much better LD plan, but for basic VOIP plus a reasonable LD plan it'll cost about $26 a month AFTER TAX. Primus VOIP also lets you tack on 2 extra numbers to your line from ANY area code they service, and will roll over to an "alternative number" I.E. your cell phone if cable or DSL goes out in your area. http://www.primus.ca
Most companies offering cheap long distance to consumers - whether via VOIP or access numbers - just make their money routing calls to carriers based on who's offering the lowest prices at the moment anyway. Few of them have much in the way of infrastructure, though some will build out as and when they get sufficient volume in certain areas.
Joe Consumer sees a reduced cost, also: the banks see opportunities to undercut each others' prices (lowering or eliminating banking fees, offering higher interest rates) and gain market share, which they do. In the process, the price to the consumer drops toward the efficiency point.
You do not understand how banks operate in Canada. For quite a while, many of the banks were (1) cutting service (decreasing service hours, closing branches, etc.), (2) increasing fees overall, and (3) making more money.
Customers were paying increasing fees for decreasing service.
The customer got shafted until CIBC and President's Choice did the PC Financial thing. Now a number of banks have added flat-rate unlimited plans.
Strange that they're not mentioned in the article - they're the third-largest provider in Canada, after Vonage and Primus. I use them myself and can't get enough of them, after some nasty experiences with Vonage.
I already get my VOIP from Primus in Toronto. I pay $40 a month for unlimited north american calling and ridiculously low overseas prices. With the regular phone companies charging over 50 dollars now for really simple service, this is a godsent.
So we merged with South America?
Ah, I didn't know it's actually North Ameriacan Online (NAOL).
I don't need a signature.
the local call with voip is not that arbitrary. in clauses for both vonage and packet 8 they note that if they deem you are using your voip from a non-US or canada IP addy they can and will switch you to a more costly plan than the unlimited plan. i have been the victim of this because i live half and half in nyc and paris. my use of non-US based IPs for calls was against their policy, but you must know that they CHANGED their policy to include the non-US IP clause after i already had service with them for five months.
therefore, local to anywhere does not apply if you are outside the US or canada.
The part I don't get is why these companies make a difference between local and long-distance calls. It's all going through the internet so what difference does it make if you're calling someone next door or across the continent? I mean, you don't pay extra for surfing websites that are in a different city...
I can understand somewhat charging more for calls in other continents, maybe? But a VoIP call in North America should cost pretty much the same no matter where. I think these companies are taking advantage of the old system's rate structure to make their services look cheaper than they really are.
And for the record, banking machines HAVE reduced consumer banking costs, but in a way that you have to actually THINK about to notice.
/., we need to band together and raise our middle finger in pride, and call BS.
You know, I was with you right up to that point. Anyone, and I mean _ANYONE_ who defends the actions of a bank in the 21st century, needs to have their head examined.
Instead of paying a Zillion (tm) dollars a year in staffing wickets, the computer automated 90% of customer interaction. What did the banks do with the newfound savings? Well, they pocketed it of course. And then they had the sheer fscking arrogance of charging me a fee to access my own money. Like the oil industry, its a monopoly, and us north americans just look the other way and pay. what would happen if we ALL told the banks they could take their ATM fees and shove it, and collectively decided to go back to using tellers? Sure, the lineups would go on forever, but wouldn't the bank be legally obligated to serve its customers in whatever manner they chose?
People need to stop listening to those such as yourself that say "No, seriously, this looks like a steaming pile of feces, but really, its a rose!" Instead, like the way the g33ks have previously here on
So a VOIP provider has to maintain a VOIP gateway and a bank of outgoing phone lines in EVERY SINGLE local calling area so that its customers can reach those areaa without incurring phone toll charges once the calls leave the Internet. Now wouldn't that be kind of expensive?
In any given area, they must setup a bank of phone lines anyway, to support incoming calls for the local customers. The only reason LD calls might cost them more is if they have no customers in a given area and they have to setup phone lines just to support calls to that area. But that should only happen if their service is unpopular.
Well, don't you give them your money to manage it in first place? You still can store it in your mattress and it won't cost you a penny to access it.
I'd rather than say you are yourself arrogant telling them they should not charge you for the service they provide. Perhaps you were never confronted to the situation to need to access your money while being 1000 miles away of your mattress.
And I don't see how they should be legally obligated to serve you at counter tellers without charging you for it? And expect the bill to be much higher than the ATM fees. Or maybe, they will simply choose to not let you open an account.
Achille Talon
Hop!
Has anyone seen any good reviews comparing the current crop of VOIP providers? I recently set up a Vonage VOIP line and so far I am not particularly happy with the quality:
- Background noise that starts before you even dial (coming from the linksys VOIP router I guess)
- Significantly more lag than a normal phone line - perhaps 500ms vs. 100ms or less for a normal phone line
- One person talking often cuts out the other person talking - I want to say that it is sort of 'single duplex' but there are definitely times when you can both hear eachother so it's not clear to me.
Despite the fact that they don't have computers, they're still going to have VoIP? I'm impressed!
l
"if you dont like it why dont you move to canada where they dont have computers and its dark for 9 months and they hate technologies" http://geraldholmes.freeyellow.com/MSadvocacy.htm
I wonder if this will be available over AOL Dial-up?
I hope that was a joke!
I was speaking with a friend of mine who works for Bell...Apparently they are currently working on a project called "Project Galileo." They plan to replace all analog POTS lines with VOIP boxes connected to VDSL modems hard wired to your NID on the side of your house over the course of the next few years. The idea is that provisioning a line would be very easy...no work needs to be done in the central office, just activating your account in their system, and adding an additional line would be just as easy.
What's to prevent the traditional phone companies from rolling out their own VoIP services? They have all they infrastructure for regular phones and DSL, so why not? They could see whether VoIP start-ups are successful, and roll back the curtain on a whole new secretly-installed VoIP infrastructure.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
..that you'll still need to pay for your phone line from Bell, Telus etc to recieve your DSL connection.
So, unless you have a cable modem, this isn't even a viable option.
What we need up here are worthy competitors in the DSL market.
Although nobody will ever see this thread, I thought I would throw in that I have been testing this for a US based service they plan to roll out sometime next year. It has some advantages, but to get it you must already be an aol customer (at this point). It is still glitchy as hell when you try and call cellphones. I have certain friends who I just can't call! Other than that it works alright.
The service uses a box made by motorola, and AOL is using level3 to route the calls. It is only available for highspeed customers, but it doesn't work for customers with AOL branded broadband services (how ironic). If you dare put the aol software on your computer, it has an advanced caller ID that will come on screen whenever a call is received. It also keeps a log of calls made and received so you can call people you know back by clicking a button and picking up your phone. If the price in the US is good enough I may keep it. During the beta period the Canadian and US long Distance is included - don't know if it will be upon final release though.
Well, don't you give them your money to manage it in first place? You still can store it in your mattress and it won't cost you a penny to access it.
I know that here in Australia at least, if you have a real job (not some shady cash-in-hand arrangement), or even if you're on welfare payments, you need a bank account for the money to be paid into, otherwise you don't get the money.O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
They don't have to purchase incoming and outgoing lines in equal amounts. If they have no customers in a given area, they just need to buy outgoing services. If they have tons of customers in a given area that only ever seem to call long-distance, they could well buy more incoming than outgoing capacity.
See, when you're negotiating bulk traffic like this, you buy based on capacity and availability, not on a per-line basis like a consumer would. You can get asymmetric service.
What about bandwidth? VoIP starts at around 30kB for a modestly decent signal. 50kB for solid, better than any phone, 90kB you're talking mid-nineties motorola single-cel along the ocean (no interference from the mainland, low mid-tones, breathy audio)... Dialup? Never.
What did you say, it sounded like crackle, burp, hiss? Oh, my email client was polling the mail server, oops. That's exactly what happens with a dsl connection and VoIP set to 30kB. At 90kB on a twice-as-fat pipe, it's stunning, not a landline on Earth can touch it. Been on them for years now, never going back to copper.
And even 24 bucks and change for a very limited N.American service blows. Vonage is $29 with unlimited 50-state/all of Canada coverage, factor in 2 cents a minute to most western european countries, and this is just another stupid move on the part of AOL. They're probably looking at the 'stupid' market, oh, I mean newbies, and they'll employ the same over-billing that Sprint wrote into their code, AND the same impossible-to-cancel that AOL already 'owns'.
People that give those aol assholes money, deserve everything that happens from then on.