[geeks] Vonage alternative?

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

On Tue, Apr 17, 2007 at 06:45:15AM -0500, Bill Bradford wrote:

> I avoid VoIP altogether; SBC has a decently-priced unlimited-LD plan that
> works well.  I pay a total of about $90/month for a custom package that
> has unlimited LD, a few extra features (call waiting, unlisted/unpublished,
> InLine Plus, etc) and 3 megabit/512 kilobit DSL.

It certainly has not panned out to be the big savings everyone thought it
would. The problem, which I found here, and obviously has moved to the
U.S. is as long as "The Phone Company" could get away with high prices
they would. Once the competiton reached the point that they had to compete
they would. 

The big deal here is international long distance. If you operate an
internation long distance carrier going out of Israel, you need a
license from the Ministry of Communications. However they recently ruled
that if you operate a service outside of Israel, and do not connect to
the local POTS network, then you don't need a license.

So a company like Vonage, which operates outside of Israel, is connected
to via the Internet, has no local incoming outgoing lines needs no
license. 

Sounds like they would be cheap, but the local POTS companies offer 
occasional users rates from $.25 to $.04 a minute depending upon how
ignorant you are of the competition. People who sign up can get even
bigger discounts. At one time there was an unlimited monthly rate
of $10 a month to the U.S. It no longer exisits, but there are still
cheap ones.

It seems the U.S. POTS companies have caught on too. 

This is nothing new, a friend of mine in the states got a cell phone
a while back because it included free long distance calls on weekends.
They lost money on him, it was the only thing he used it for.

What I expect will come soon is bridging services, where you can get
a POTS to SIP/SKYPE/whatever bridge from your phone company. 

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM
IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667  Fax ONLY: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838 
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