Daily VoIP Updates: 2006

Will Verizon spark Broadband Phone Service price war?

Daily VoIP News.

It's hard to think of Verizon as an underdog, but its VoIP services are still hardly a blip on the industry's radar. That may change, though, thanks to some aggressive price-cutting efforts.

Verizon last week lowered the price of its VoiceWing VoIP package by $10 to $24.95, undercutting Vonage slightly just as Vonage is within weeks of an IPO.

Furthermore, Verizon's activation is free; Vonage charges about $30. BusinessWeek reports that Vonage, like most dot-com startups, is emphasizing growth over profitability; it lost $261.3 million on $269.2 million in sales. But it also notes that Verizon has lost 9 percent (3 million) of its residential lines in the last year alone while Vonage picked up 325,000 subscribers.

Analysts, who expect other VoIP vendors to follow Verizon's lead, estimate that VoiceWing has 50,000 customers to Vonage's 1.5 million.

For more telecom news go to: Telecommunicate.

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Cablecos emerging as major VoIP players

VoIP News

Daily VoIP or Broadband Phone News & Updates.- If you think Vonage and Skype are the alpha and omega of consumer VoIP, think again. Three out of the top five VoIP carriers in the last quarter of 2005 were cable companies, according to figures compiled by ISP-Planet from publicly available sources.

Skype is the carrier with the most customers--1.8 million as of July 2005--with Vonage's 1.5 million (as of March 2006) not far behind. But the third, fourth and fifth carriers are Cox, Comcast and Time Warner Digital Phone, with between 1.1 million and 1.3 million users.

The study notes, however, that the cable services are not true VoIP services, and that many service providers do not make subscriber numbers available. Also, it's not clear whether network operators like the cablecos can compete long-term with software-based providers like Skype and Vonage, which don't face the same infrastructure costs.

For more telecom news go to: Telecommunicate.

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AOL launches IM-based VoIP service for all subscribers

VoIP News.

Daily VoIP or Broadband Phone Service News & Updates.- It's the Law of the Playground: The big boys may not take over a game when they join in, but they can't help but change the rules. When it comes to consumer marketing, there are few bigger guys than AOL, which last week announced its free, IM-based VoIP service.

AIM Phoneline gives a free phone number to any instant messaging client--remember, IM is already free. Skype, by comparison, charges $4 per month for an inbound phone number. If you want to make outgoing calls on the AOL VoIP service, that'll cost a flat $14.95 per month.

The new AOL service is primarily a consumer play, but carriers are well aware that consumer tech has a way of sliding into enterprises, so this approach to VoIP service delivery is definitely worth watching.

For more telecom news go to: Telecommunicate.

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