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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 BT service offers free calls to UK landlines at evenings and weekends, at a cost of £4.99 a month
This is totally kick-ass! Where else can you pay £4.99 to make free calls?
NOWHERE! That's where!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Of course, Tesco are likely just re-selling somebody else's network like most other VoIP players seem to do. So far they do Insurance, Tellys, Voice and banking services.. They will be operating small brothels next..
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 a big fan of VoIP (I've moved many friends and family to various companies). I can't wait until there are more programs available to let me use my PDA-bluetooth-tether-cell combo (150kbps download nearly everywhere) to talk without the cell network. I believe T-Mobile will actually help transition their users to VoIP as they build a faster network (and make their money that way).
The big problem I have with VoIP is it still seems to rely on people wanting to contact POTS numbers. When will we see a replacement for the old phone number?
The e-mail address isn't a bad idea, but I honestly don't want to share that with some people. A new number isn't memorable. Names are too generic and duplicated (there are 3 Adam Dada's that I've found in the past 3 years).
What is the solution for the "Follow Me" signature that we can use as our VoIP contact? Is the future settings up 3 or 4 addresses so we can give friends, family and tele-marketters different numbers?
They lock down the hardware so that the market has lots of used VoIP hardware that is 100% useless. I can find gobs of Vonnage SIP phones on ebay for dirt but are locked to Vonnage.
I just wish these companies would be required to be friendlier and unlock the hardware after the "contract" is up.
Cellphone companies do thew same crap. I had to threaten to sue AT&T wireless because they locked my personal phone to their service. I purchased an unlocked phone myself used their service and their scumbag service rep locked my phone. these companies really need to learn what customer service is and that the customer's property needs to be released to them at the end of thwe contract.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Given that one out of every eight pounds, spent on shopping in the UK goes to Tesco
People in the UK exchange their fat for goods and services based on how much they weigh? Weird.
warning: kidding
Tesco receives one out of every eight pounds spent on "shopping" (how is "shopping" defined? Is it all commerce, all commerce minus Internet commerce, all commerce by individuals as opposd to corporate entities and associations...?) 12.5% of the entire British shopping budget? One quid for every eight spent in the ENTIRE FLIPPING COUNTRY?
Where is the outrage about this? Can you imagine the American equivalent? I can't imagine that even Wal*Mart, powerful as it is, gets one out of every eight bucks spent in the US... If they did, there would (I presume) be a lot more public outcry.
Then again, I strongly suspect that Microsoft makes at least 12.5% of the total profit earned by the entire computer industry (hardware + software + services), and they are still relatively un-protested (beyond grumbles about "the damned computer locked up again") in the US.
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
UK consumers will get the "pay 4.99 and have free calls" because at the moment they pay BT a standing line charge and then pay for each call (time based charging) on top....
This is exactly the kind of thing that makes people angry, move to other continents and start a Revolution against the reigning Empire.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
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.
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.)
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.
Doubtful. Most people don't realize (at least here in the US) that the phone companies own the interconnects, and thus, the backbone of the internet. If you put the telco's out of business with the internet, guess where the internet goes?
Kind of like the theory that if you want to get rid of heart disease, remove everyone's heart. That is the only quick, easy, and sure fire way to do it. Once all the hearts have been removed, there will be no more heart disease, or cancer, or crime, or overpopulation......
...because what good is power unless you can abuse it?
The funniest thing I heard for a while was the discussion about the "British Day" that Gordon Brown mooted recently. My friend proposed that we should celebrate it on the 4th July... Why? Well, that's the day that the US celebrates independence and complete separation from the British state and nation, and so should we, so should we...
--------------------------------------------- "In the end, we're all just water and old stars."
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.
I really, to be honest, could care less about 911 calling on VoIP. If 911 is all important, then it should be a governement provided and supported service. 911 should be active on any landline, regardless of whether you have service on the line or now. Simply plug in a phone and you can dial 911. Done. If this were the case, VoIP adapters could have a extra port for connection to a landline jack and route 911 calls to it.
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.
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Walmart gets pretty much ALL my money spent at retail. And with a family of 6, we spend a lot.
Not saying I'm happy about it, but can't make the paycheck stretch as far anyplace else.
But Newegg gets my computer equipment expenditures...