Thursday, April 10. 2008VoIP Keeps Getting More 'Popular'John Linton One of the things that has surprised me this year has been the acceleration of VoIP usage by Exetel's own customers and the general increase in the number of people I know who have moved their businesses to VoIP over the past few months. As someone who has been around since the time that "VoIP will take off this year" was first being declaimed at international conferences (in the mid 1990s) and then declaimed every year since that time - I think I'm now convinced that VoIP really has "taken of". Exetel, as a company, has only used VoIP for over 18 months now and I and most other Exetel employees only use VoIP on our home telephones. I don't even think about the 'quality' of the VoIP calls - as far as I can see the quality is the same as any other call I've ever made. I'm sure this doesn't come as "news" to anybody in the communications industry all of whom probably have used VoIP longer than I have. What has surprised me is that two very conservative business acquaintances have told me over the past few days just how delighted they are to have changed their companies to VoIP and how unbelievable the quality is. What's more surprising is the 'surge' in VoIP applications from Exetel's ADSL users over the past few weeks - to around ten times what has been the case for the past 2 years or so. The change is so great and so sudden that it's as if someone turned a switch. I've actually contacted several Exetel users who have applied for VoIP over the past month to ask them why they have made the move and been, yet again, surprised by their answers. I contacted 20 users (who hadn't also got a Naked ADSL2 service) and the reasons given for activating VoIP in their homes was: 7 - tried the equipmentless VoIP option first and that convinced them VoIP was as good as PSTN and much cheaper 5 - switched from another VoIP provider for better/more reliable quality 4 - were convinced by friends/family that VoIP was no hassle and saved a lot of money 2 - simply wanted to play with it to see what it was like 1 - was set up by their son who was going overseas for a year and wanted his parents to call him without costing a lot of money 1 - was given a VoIP capable modem and decided to try it out Not a very representative 'sample' and the results didn't tell me much/anything but the conclusion I drew was that there has now been so much talk about VoIP for so long that there isn't any real 'fear factor' holding people back from making the obvious and substantial savings. The real advantages of VoIP for businesses go far beyond much lower call costs of course and are so vast that it would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that Exetel couldn't still be in business if we hadn't implemented a VoIP/Asterisk PBX. None of my friends who have implemented VoIP in their businesses have gone very much beyond, in all but two cases, at all beyond simply making VoIP outbound calls to save call costs. They have many pleasant surprises available to them in the future. I would think that all ISPs have seen the same dramatic increase in the use of VoIP and perhaps have seen it long before Exetel has. I'm not sure what any of this means in terms of the underlying assumptions of costing ADSL and associated old style wire line rental and call revenue contributions but it will mean something over the coming year for carriers with large PSTN line rental and call revenue bases. There is almost no reason why any person, business or private, would continue to use a wire line and PSTN telephone service rather than a VoIP or mobile service (something that has been said for several years but now apparently being agreed with by people who previously ignored the benefits). With the continuing decrease in the cost of ATA/VoIP Modem hardware the last 'barrier' to a much wider acceptance of VoIP now seems inevitable - although I'm making this statement 13 years after I first heard it. Naked ADSL should also 'take off' as there really is (outside a tiny percentage of 'medical emergency' scenarios) absolutely no reason for anyone to keep paying for a PSTN service. I wonder if 2008 really is, finally, going to be the year VoIP really happened? Trackbacks
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It's only lack of number porting holding me back. I again tried to convince the wife the other night but she was adamant she wanted to keep our existing home number. All our outgoing calls are made by VOIP and the Netcomm v300 is a fantastic device merging incoming PSTN calls with VOIP outgoing on your existing telephone handsets etc.
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Unfortunately the Naked ADSL / VoIP issue doesnt work well with back to base alarm systems. I would imagine there is a very large number of people who can never go naked adsl because they need a POTS service for their alarm/eftpos machine etc which either cant be replaced or require significant investment (eg mobile phone dialers) which remove the financial advantage and increase complexity.
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Been a VoIP user for about 3 years now and have saved a fortune, the prices have come down and the features and quality have improved enormously in that time, my PSTN exists only to support my ADSL service, if I could get naked ADSL2+ it would be done in a flash and Telstra wouldn't get another cent out of me
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I have been using Voip for 4 years now.
Its a pity it was not available to me when I was working fulltime and had monthly bills over $400. The 10 cents per call rate has definitely increased my use of the telephone - I dont even think about the cost now. I have been really excited by ANI callback and other similar technologies (sms callback, web callback) and voip gateways. I am going on hols to UK in a couple of months (for a couple of months) and have already lined up accounts with a Voip ANI provider there and another who provides DIDs that are basically re-directed back to nominated worldwide telephone numbers (amazing stuff). The plan is to get a local SIM card and then make calls using the services above. I'll be able to call almost anywhere in the world for 20 cents per minute from a prepaid phone. I'd suggest Exetel look into some of these technologies - when "joe average" starts to know about them there will be a big surge in Voip usage. Only the other day I put somebody onto an Australian ANI provider... so that they could ring their husband at a remote minesite for 20 cents per call and to a mobile phone for just over 10 cents per minute. Regards, Harry. Comment (1)
Quite likely related to VoIP and something I think you may be interested to hear John, is that Telstra recently called my boss' mobile (which is a development in itself because they never would have been put through to him had they called the office lines, but they have never before figured that out). They offered him some deal where he pays $xx extra per month for the rental on one of our office lines and in return he gets all local and STD phone calls on that line for 'free'. There is no contract. I am unsure what the catch/es is/are. He claims he will save around 200% of the extra charge.
Whether or not this is related to our dabble into VoIP last year I am unsure (we used VoIP for all outgoing calls for several months until giving up on our apparently mediocre equipment). My reason for taking up Exetel VoIP late last year was that I swapped some redundant (to me) item for an 'iinet' Belkin modem with a friend. Mind you this exchange was instigated by me after my wife made two phone calls that totalled $45. We've spent $36.61 or so on (home) phone calls this year. Comment (1)
Naked ADSL is not that great for the average home user.
Firstly, you only save about $15 a month, if that, on your plans from what I see. $15 a month for a wired phone backup is a bargain as those "tiny percentage of medical emergency scenarios" happen surprisingly often. Anyone with childern or elderly parents would remiss by going solely VOIP in my opinion. Comment (1)
In the medical emergency situation I would be more likely to want to use a mobile anyway, last thing I would want is to be tied to a PSTN location, would get rid of the landline in a heartbeat if my exchange had available ports for a naked service
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I have always used my mobile for calls to family etc using Telstra's free and then cheap calls after 9 and on weekends option on there pre-paid products... up until they forced me off my CDMA phone and wouldn't give the option back to me without a minimum spend of $30 a month!
Anyway that's my reason for trying out Voip. Waits for ATA to arive Comment (1)
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