VoIP in a Down Economy
It’s funny. People like me that have been following VoIP for a while have gotten so over the fact that VoIP is about saving money. In fact, we often think that VoIP-related businesses that are just in the business of shaving a few fractions of a cent off the cost of a call are going to fail, given that call costs are approaching zero.
But then you look at the state of the global economy. It’s hard to escape the news that the U.S. Stock Market is trending downward, fluctuating wildly, and industries all over the place are in trouble. You know it’s bad when the Sequoia Capital says it’s bad. Even the folks that make staples like aluminum are having trouble.
While VoIP does provide a way to offer lots more functionality than is possible with traditional telephony, I would not be surprised if in these tough times, cost becomes a huge factor in people’s decision to try–and use–VoIP related services.
Of course, one should be careful about what service you use. Given the general state of economy, I would expect smaller, less established and capitalized services will fail. I would tend to stick with the big name services like Skype, Gizmo5, which you can use on any PC, Mac, or Linux machine with a headset and microphone. If you want something that works like a regular telephone service, something like Vonage or VoicePulse. If you want video calling, I can’t recommend SightSpeed enough!
If you don’t want to invest in hardware, you could use a service like Jajah Direct, which lets you use your regular phone to make cheaper International cals. Jajah’s also providing their telephony infrastructure to many partners such as Gizmo5. They also just recently added SupportSpace, Communipedia, and Momail as partners!
Related articles by Zemanta
- Jajah teams up with Yahoo Messenger, growing fast
- SIPphone Makes The Call To Jajah
- VCs Now Ringing Alarm Bell: Silicon Valley Downturn
- Sequoia: Downturn will last YEARS!
- Now is the time to start panicking: Sequoia
- Sequoia calls off the boom [Meltdowns]
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=efa33fef-2546-432c-84fd-18bbbbb7a00e)
Bookmark with: del.icio.us Digg it Furl iFeedReaders ma.gnolia Maple.nu RawSugar reddit Simpy StumbleUpon
Tags: jajah, Sequoia Capital, skype, VoicePulse, voip, vonage Fnord
Comment by Jared Eldredge
seems to me that a $20/month prepaid data-only sim card on, say, at&t, would work well.
i can connect to gizmo5 via fring using at&t medianet reliably enough… if it comes down to it, i could see myself switching from ($40+$15+$5) at&t voice service to ($20+$0.019/min) at&t data with gizmo5 for voice. $40 gets you 450 minutes on at&t, and assuming they were all outbound minutes (gizmo only charges for outbound) then the two services compare like this:
1. at&t voice = $60, includes 200 messages
- pro: more convenient; better quality voice, etc
- con: more expensive
2. at&t data + gizmo voice = $28.55, includes unlimited messages
- pro: cheaper, relies on prepaid so no contract, works over wifi as well
- con: lower quality voice, for others to call you you may need a combo of {GrandCentral, callerID@gizmo, Area775, CallIn number, etc}
still - that’s more than 50% savings, and that assumes you use 100% of your minutes each month and that you’re always calling OUT. on a month you only receive calls, or don’t make any calls (cheapest possible service rate) your rate drops to $20/month - or 66% off at&t’s rate.
of course, i’ve assumed throughout this that any self-respecting mobile user with an interest in VoIP will have data services. savings exist, but drop significantly, if you avoid data services and txt-msging with at&t, opting for their cheapest voice-only plan (still, $40/month is more than $28.55)
-bit
Comment by spg
i would say that the economic hard times are a time when the VOIP operators should go back to the basics. stop talking so much about feature sets. do concentrate on customer service, crystal clear voice quality and beyond everything else absolute rock bottom pricing.
i would also say this is generally the time to think more about customer satisfaction and less about impressing the VC guys. the ones that succeed will be those who concentrate are keeping costs down and making a small incremental margin based profit from the beginning; not those looking for an IPO and VC infusions.