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Supermarket VOIP
chuckT writes "Tesco, the UK's largest supermarket chain, has announced plans to sell a VOIP handset and connection through their stores. Given that one out of every eight pounds, spent on shopping in the UK goes to Tesco, and the UK has one of the highest broadband takeup rates around, is this the end for the classic telecoms providers like BT?"
The USA has free local calls, and most providers throw in free domestic long distance as well now. For $99 a month you can get the whole package, broadband, telephone service with all the bells and whistles (caller ID, 3 way, voice mail, free LD, etc.) and television service. All the major cable companies and telcos offer it.
Here, like most of Europe, however, its all changing to cell phones. I dont know anybody who still owns a landline. All cell phones in the US include free domestic LD. Many people have cell phones from other cities (personally I have a Houston number but live in Austin. Got the number when I lived in Houston and didnt want to change.)
1. The emergency services issue has been solved. (OK, it requires the end-user to pay a little attention.) In any event, it's not really worse for VoIP than, say, cell phones.
2. Power cuts are an issue, sure. Of course, a UPS for the VoIP box, router, and cable modem (which would probably keep going for a LONG time) would solve this issue. Most folks I know use cordless phones which -- guess what -- don't work during power cuts either (the handsets are battery-powered, but the base stations aren't).
I doubt it.
For a start, Tesco's on-line systems to date have sucked. I subscribed to Tesco Downloads to get a legal music download I wanted, and the UI was so bad that having let me sign up with a particular e-mail address, I then couldn't log in using it because it was a character too long for the field on the web form! I tried to contact them, but... there were no contact details, anywhere, and mails to webmaster at both the Tesco Downloads and the main Tesco site went unanswered. This doesn't exactly make me want to try relying on their VOIP system.
In addition to Tesco's apparent incompetence, BT (or the cable companies, depending on who you're with) still make a significant amount of money from those broadband subscribers. I hardly use my landline any more, but I still have to cough up several quid a month for BT line rental so that my broadband ISP and I can communicate. The actual cost of my calls on BT represents around 0.1% of the money I pay them, since they've been offering calls-for-almost-nothing for months anyway.
In other words, BT are now effectively an infrastructure company and not a services company, and their own phone service is almost free. Why do I need VOIP again?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Next? I've been f**ked six times in the last month! Their swanky new DIY tills don't seem to understand what special offers are, nor to be able to count change accurately...
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Trust me, there are a small but growing number of people in the UK who are horrified at the amount of money Tesco makes.
http://www.tescopoly.org/
"Remember, every little hurts" is a piss-take of the Tesco slogan "Every Little Helps" which grates me every time I hear it.
Tesco are also bad for the environment, as trucks delivering to Tesco in a year, which in 2002 stood at 1,150,000 deliveries, clock up a total mileage of 140 million miles (224 million km).
--
silas
hobbit
Oh, yeah, my Tesco has:
Buy 3 CDs for £12!!!!
(all the CDs cost under £4 on their own)
I've had to put up with the DIY tills for a year or two now. They finally work most of the time now. Haven't had issues with special offers though.
Can you imagine the American equivalent?
.75%.
According to Wikipedia, Wal-Mart accounts for 14% of US grocery sales, 20% of toy sales, and increased overall efficiency in the US economy by
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Some bore will probably mod me 'off-topic' for this but the British pound gets its name from the time before the Bank of England started issuing fidicuary (sp?) money and when a pound note was representative of a pound of gold held by the BoE.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
when a pound note was representative of a pound of gold held by the BoE.
A pound of silver, or roughly 240 silver pennies.
Reason for this is that Tesco's are an amazingly sharp fast-moving company. There's nothing they wont sell if they think they have a market for it. Aswell as groceries: credit-cards, personal finance (loans etc), Filling-stations. In the US maybe this would come into antitrust hassles but (in Ireland at least) it appears to be a win for the consumer. They've got the cheapest petrol (Gasoline) going, decent prices on groceries. I've never been so brave as to check out their personal loans though. They also do some clever cross-marketing stuff like spend 50 euro on groceries get 5 euro off your petrol and such.
They seem like clever guys - and now they're selling cut-price phones with their groceries!
"... always going forward 'cause we cant find reverse! "