Voice Service Continues To Trend Towards Free
from the it's-like-a-voip-fire-sale dept
VoIP provider Gizmo is the latest company to announce some form of free voice calls, highlighting that the cost of voice service is quickly falling to zero. The Gizmo offer comes with some strings attached, so like Skype's free calling plan, don't go thinking you'll never have to pay for a phone call again just yet, but even VoIP providers without PC-to-PC calling systems, like Cablevision and Vonage, are slashing some of their rates. Gizmo's plan is to reel customers in with free basic service, then sell them premium services -- illustrating the likely billing model for voice in the near future. While basic service may remain free, there's still plenty of add-ons telephony companies can sell, whether it's something basic like voicemail or conference calling, or the ubiquitous coverage of a mobile-phone network. So far most of the "free" offers still depend on people using a PC somewhere in the mix, meaning they're not yet a huge, immediate threat to the likes of AT&T or Verizon -- Skype's low revenue per user makes that much clear. However, they're indicative of the pricing pressure VoIP will ultimately put on incumbents' voice services.
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Easy?
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Its not free
Whats happening is that all communications are merging into one service for a flat rate. But unless Internet becomes free, then voice communications will not be free.
As for Bluetooth headsets, you dont want to bother with that crap. Most bluetooth headsets are crap, the technology is crap, the quality of these things are crap. Bluetooth is such a poorly conceived "standard" that using it for any kind of PC VOIP is pretty much unrealistic. Case in point, a friend has a VOIP soft phone and a Bluetooth headset, and it he always sounds broken up to a point where you cannot carry a conversation with him. There are few RARE Bluetooth and PC combinations that offer decent quality, its a question of how the PC vendor and the device vendor have implemented Bluetooth, and few do it well.
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Re: Its not free
I use a blueetooth headset everyday, and on the few occasions I run out of battery and have to switch over to the actual phone, people ask what happened, and that I sounded a lot clearer previously.
The bluetooth headset is apparently better at filtering surrounding noise than the phone...
It is also very convenient not having to attach a cable to the phone whenever I synch my calendar and contacts, or send one of the photos taken with the camera to the laptop/desktop or other device.
So, blaim the company that implemented it, not the standard. There are lots of excellent bluetooth equipment out there!
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I see this more as a way to compete with Skype/Von
The product is trying to get more groups, i.e. universities, businesses, user groups with their asterick product line which is a premium service, but this really is a good idea for me. Having the world using VoIP as a way to connect people rather than relying on tradition telco is a future service. I just wonder how the CEO of AT&T will react to this on this "we can't support people using our bandwidth for their profit" speech.
I think combining this type of service for wireline and then UMA (GAN) for wireless, VoIP is looking more and more attractive everyday.
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hmm...
Isn't that like "bait and switch"?
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Re: hmm...
Geocities offers free web pages but has an upgrade option for more features/less ads that costs money. This is no different.
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re: easy
http://www.trendware.com/press/2006/0209_skypephone.htm
there are a ton of adapters and things that bounce PC based calls onto either a USB phone or an actual telephone.
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