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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.
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 $2.95 Canadian. Those prices seem a little more reasonable than the AOL package.
Sorry to pick nits, but shouldn't it be COL?
Voice over IP should cost LESS not a bit less, it's not like they have to built a network or something, they get some servers gear configure it the way they want and the trick is done. 30$ 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
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....
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?
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!
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
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.