DISQUS

Hello Luca,


thank you for this debate.



I must admit that you have strong arguments which make me think. But still it seems suspicious that most VoIP news sources are company driven and opt for higher prices.



They tend to just tell what's good for their companies and not what's good for the costumer. At least I would like to see a disclosure under such articles (as we see it often at GigaOM) which explains your company's interests.



People arrive on those websites via search engines and think it's an indepentend news source. But it's a marketing tool. That's why you see there news like "higher prices are good for you" while in user forums you find much more appealing messages like "how to make free phone calls from Pakistan to the UK".



That's the kind of information I like. :)



I dream about a worldwide SIP peering where everyone can call everyone for free. People would just have to pay their broadband connection and nothing for the calls, like they pay nothing for their emails.



That's technically possible and it basically was like this when the SIP movement started. But now I see every time more SIP blocking. Calls, which where free before, have to take paid routes. That annoys me.



Somebody has to say that too. There is a natural antagonism between companies and costumers. Obviously the companies want the highest possible prices and the costumers would love to get everything for free.



Every side has to make their points. Also the end users. That's why I responded like I did.



Cheers,

Markus





P. S.: The mentioned VoIP flatrates aren't always the best solutions. E. g. in Germany they normally cost 10 Euros a month for national calls. When I pay 1 Cent per minute, which is a standard price of many providers, I normally spend 4 Euros monthly for my phone calls. So I would have overpaid using a flatrate.



Another example of the difficult relationships between users and providing companies.

Well, in fact it was me who advocated the free calls as a killer application of VoIP. But this does not mean that I want the VoIP company to die from starvation for me.


I just like the "3 dollars a month all free calls" deal I get from Voipstunt. And I pray that this company is intelligent enough to be able to live from that income. They don't give me real "free" calls, but a cheap flat fee. Still they charge 1 Cent per minute for my daily calls to Peru, but this is no problem because I have 10 Euros to use up in 120 days.



I just have seen today on a street in Berlin an advertising for plain DSL for just 9 Euro a month. I suppose that there will be 7 Euros for the internet flatrate on top, but at least it is unbundled from a fixed telephone line. Together with Voipstunt I could so have all free calls and all free internet for about 20 Euros a month. This seems a reasonable price to me and it would be less than a half of what I am paying now.



What do the experts say? Is 20 Euros enough to offer this?

To me "free" calls as in "free beer" are still the killer application of VoIP. But I am only a normal user and a freelancing journalist who is happy to bring down his costs per call near to zero.


The telcos charge me anyway high basic fees for my DSL connection which is bundled with a fixed phone line I hardly ever use. Still there are no cheap DSL only offers in Germany.



At least I make free or super cheap calls on this infrastructure, using several VoIP providers and an ATA, so I can talk on my old phone while my computer is switched off.



I suppose that many users are thinking like me.

Jajah has also a client for Java and Symbian phones. Maybe the want to port it on the iPhone's Apple operating system.