Who Cares That It's VoIP?
from the just-what-is-it? dept
Vonage and Skype are two very different things. However, since both are considered "VoIP," it's confusing plenty of people and making them shy away from anything having to do with VoIP. It is a problem for the industry that the idea of "telephone replacement" services are being lumped in with PC-to-PC software apps. There are some areas in which they overlap -- and that should only grow over time, but there's clearly a lot of consumer confusion in the market. People are increasingly aware that VoIP exists, and that it might be useful, but they're worried that it could mean giving up their phone or having to make calls via their computer, when that isn't necessarily true. To be honest, it's still not entirely clear why the VoIP industry has focused so much on selling "VoIP." The average consumer doesn't care: sell the real benefits of the service, whether it's cheaper phone service or simpler communications. Selling "VoIP" by itself is just adding to the confusion. A few companies seem to get this (plenty of cable companies refer to their offering as "digital telephone service" rather than VoIP), but it hasn't gone far enough. Also, in forcing VoIP companies to focus on selling the benefits, maybe they'll finally realize that they can offer a lot more in terms of features than traditional telephony, rather than just trying to replace it.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Yeah, it's an issue
Many are confused by the presence of VOIP, it's as if someone was selling not Internet access, but HTTP/TCP/IP/SMTP/POP3 access, and people thought there would be some trick.
The most popular questions - can I still use the phone if my PC is off, what if someone types on the computer at that exact minute, etc. Nothing to do with VOIP, of course, it's just that people are somewhat confused about it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I feel it's the opposite
What seems more stupid to me is that none of the providers have chosen to do something new and interesting. They really are just duplicating POTS over IP, and the fixed infrastructure we've got is far better for voice transport than IP is.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]