Slashdot Mirror
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?"
VOIP has many problems, e.g. unlike regular telephones on regular telephone lines, they do not work during power cuts. They can also cause problems when being used for emergency calls, as the location of the person cannot be traced easily (if at all.) Until the problems are sorted out, I don't think people will be jumping onto VOIP phones.
Unless there is a wireless grid the users of voip will still be dependent on the cables coming into their house. Those cables for the most part are owned by the telco/cable companies. It's not really an end to the Telco's it is more of a transition of services offered.
I'm from the US and my phone service provider used to SBC. I switched to vonage over the Summer, but I can't imagine the billing has changed all that much. When I subscribed to SBC, local calls were free, however, it depends on your definition of "local".
For example, I live in Madison. Orange, which is 24.15 miles away (as the wolf runs) is a "local" call. On the other hand, Branford, which is 10.73 miles away, is not a local call and I am charged on a per minute basis.
That never made any sense to me whatsoever.
Respect It.
None of the problems seen as particular to VOIP (in the sense of Vonage at home etc) actually are and, besides, in the corporate environment, it has been a done deal for years. I haven't seen a large office that wasn't using IP phones in some years.
POTS doesn't run on magic fairy dust, it requires electricity, but it is assumed to be well backed-up, although it still suffers problems of cut lines etc. In "real" emergencies like earthquakes and storms, POTS goes out ALL THE TIME. How about the growing tide of wireless-only people? 911 problems are the same, towers go out, etc. With VOIP, you're running over POTS or cable. If YOU have a backup power system, much as is required on the provider end, there's little if any systemic difference in reliability--and really, most people no longer use telephones that run only on the power of the phone line itself, so while your telephone line may be just dandy, it doesn't do much good when the phone itself is dead.
Value for money is fantastic, but have you actually compared with POTS? I called a friend using Skype, then my internet connection died. So I picked up the phone and called back.
The lag in conversation was considerably smaller. The audio quality was a lot better. There were no dropouts. The audio never went crackly. It's a much better service, and the amount that people spend on ordinary landline calls these days is so small that the cost of broadband and equipment needed isn't worth the investment.
I have to say Tesco are pure pure evil, but they are bloody useful, I had an old supermarket near me it was overpriced, crap quality and only open at traditional business hours, it shut down and was replaced by a tesco - cheap, everything you could imagine under one small roof, always open, always full of people, but I guess thats how the market works, if your business is old and bloated *cough* BT you're going to loose out, personally i find all telecoms companies here are overpriced and have crap service, my old mobile company cost me prices comparable with a satelite call! and 3G drops connections so much its like trying to talk through old-time radio. I think its going to be sad but necessary to take these big telecoms companies round the back and put a bullet in them, sad because there will be potentially so many redundancies but necessary because the world is moving on people now expect to be able to communicate anywhere with anyone for next to nothing. Companies like BT should know better I mean how long did it take for un-metered dial-up to appear? Why have we been using the same old system of analogue phones sampled at local exchanges when we could have pioneered and switched to an entirely digital phone system years ago thus saving allot of hassle and making high-speed net access built in? BT is big on research and they have failed to significantly change the way they do business, therefore they are going to go out of business.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.