OK, here is the best VOIP offer so far. Skypeout now offers FREE unlimited pc to phone calls, both landlines & cell phones within US & Canada untill the end of 2006. Sweet deal... I am sure this the most aggressive step taken by any VOIP company to gain a foothold in the market. Yahoo recently launched it Yahoo messenger with Voice pc to phone voip service. NetZero and Net2Phone also offer similar services. But given Skype's free unlimited offer, they will have a tough time gaining any marketshare, at least till the end of the year, provided Skype maintains reasonable call quality. But then in any market place free offers generally come with a not so great qaulity. Skype's challenge will not be gaining market share, which it will, but rather holding on to it after 2006, when it will have decide how to make some money. After all it cannot serve all these non-paying customers for ever. It will be interesting to see how successfully Skype converts its free customer base to paying customers. In the mean time I don't think Yahoo is just going to sit tight and watch. I am sure they will come up with some competing offers, if not totally free, but very competitively priced and with added features that Skype doesn't have. And lets not forget Spokn which is in beta and now offers free domestic and international calls. Though nobody knows how long they will offer the free sevice or if it's just a part of their beta testing and when they will go will go live. Spokn's call quality is not up to the mark, at least not yet. And if it can improve its call qaulity and keep the free offer open it can be a serious contender too. And last but not the least, guess how interesting it will be if Google with all its might, wants to offer a pc to phone service through its Google Talk. Let's hope for that day when Skype, Yahoo and Google all fight it out for market share and we the consumers win.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Monday, May 29, 2006
Ditch the Phone Company, Buy more gas.
Hi,
Welcome to my the VOIP Gazette. I am a new VOIP user. When I was looking for a VOIP provider I was a complete VOIP novice. My only aim was to switch to VOIP and save some money on my long distance bill. My story begins when I set out to find a provider. The more time I spent on the internet looking for provider, the more I got confused. I had so many questions. Not all voip providers are made equal. My parents live in India, I make frequent India calls. That brought one more complication to my VOIP search. Some like Netzero Voice (has a free one month offer now) and Yahoo Messenger with Voice offer PC to Phone service for a fee and have good international rates. Some offer Phone to Phone service only. Some voip providers have excellent international rates but not so good call quality. Then there are providers like Spokn, still in beta, which offers free PC to Phone service, both domestic and international. Wow.... free international calls... am I dreaming. But anyway, with so many variables to consider, I went back to the internet, tried to read about voip as much as I could, narrowed down my choices. And today I am a proud voip user. Didn't somebody say, "when the student is ready, the teacher arrives". In this blog I plan to discuss my voip shopping experience and some of my findings. Stay tuned. Let's all ditch our regular phone company, switch to voip and save a few bucks, so that we can buy some more gas :-). Stay tuned.
Welcome to my the VOIP Gazette. I am a new VOIP user. When I was looking for a VOIP provider I was a complete VOIP novice. My only aim was to switch to VOIP and save some money on my long distance bill. My story begins when I set out to find a provider. The more time I spent on the internet looking for provider, the more I got confused. I had so many questions. Not all voip providers are made equal. My parents live in India, I make frequent India calls. That brought one more complication to my VOIP search. Some like Netzero Voice (has a free one month offer now) and Yahoo Messenger with Voice offer PC to Phone service for a fee and have good international rates. Some offer Phone to Phone service only. Some voip providers have excellent international rates but not so good call quality. Then there are providers like Spokn, still in beta, which offers free PC to Phone service, both domestic and international. Wow.... free international calls... am I dreaming. But anyway, with so many variables to consider, I went back to the internet, tried to read about voip as much as I could, narrowed down my choices. And today I am a proud voip user. Didn't somebody say, "when the student is ready, the teacher arrives". In this blog I plan to discuss my voip shopping experience and some of my findings. Stay tuned. Let's all ditch our regular phone company, switch to voip and save a few bucks, so that we can buy some more gas :-). Stay tuned.
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