John Linton
...or perhaps after all these years of counting it as a major blessing I'm getting to begin to hate it for never allowing enough time to actualy get any benefit from providing services based on it.....
Exetel installed its own VoIP switch almost 12 months ago and since that time has gradually built up the amount of VoIP minutes we switch for our customers.
Our introduction of the 'equipmentless VoIP' concepts some two months ago has been moderately successful so far with new users signing up for that service every day.
Earlier last week we commenced the distribution of an Exetel 'calling card' service via $10.00 pre-paid cards sold through convenience stores and other retail outlets in the mainland State capitals.
Overall we have put in place these new services because we saw the need to reach around 10,000,000 minutes a month by sometime toward the end of 2008 to allow us to be able to continue to buy at competitive rates and therefore continue to provide services to our customers that made a profit to Exetel.
Recently we announced the first ADSL plans that included a sizable amount of frree VoIP calls within the plan prices and have realistic plans to include such a component in all future plans from the second quarter of calendar 2008.
We've always been aware of the abilities and costs of Skype and more recently Vonage in the USA (Vonage's plans for Australia seem to have stalled/gone away after their initial advertising here but they seem to do very well in the USA).
However, late last week one of our customers posted a link on the Exetel User Forum to this new service in the USA:
http://windowssecrets.com/comp/071213#story1
Not alarming in itself perhaps. However it does raise a few significant issues about the future of VoIP and, most importantly, VoIP pricing.
Basically such a simple P and P device catapults VoIP from a service only for the technically competent to a consumer purchase in any retail store - absolutely no technical knowledge required.
Like Skype and Vonage it will also only be a matter of months before every new laptop and GSM phone has the same capability using one or other of the major telephone carriers to provide the VoIP minutes.
Voip minutes 'free' for the first twelve months overcomes a need to purchase some hardware in a very big way and our two major carriers (Telstra and Optus) appear to be showing no loss of appetite in competing with each other in just how much they can each give away in their desperation not to lose market share to each other.
With this new generation of device the future of wire line telephone revenues is likely to plummet even faster than they are at the moment.
..and there I was feeling really happy that we had managed to complete our 'triple play' of establishing Exetel's VoIP services in the 2007 calendar year!
Since I was first involved in selling and instaling IP voip over data lines in 1993 or so (I can't remember the exact time of the first installation) I've listened to industry commentators continually saying that "this year Voip will really take off. Well it has but its boom, at least in terms of offering opportunities to non-dominant carriers, may never eventuate.
Oh well - back to the drawing board - one more time.