Comments on: Nothing But The V-Thang

By: SIPphone Makes The Call To Jajah - GigaOM

SIPphone Makes The Call To Jajah - GigaOM — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:42:19 +0000

[...] a Mac OS X soft client (in addition to a PC version) and it is doing a might fine job for me. I was highly skeptical of RingCentral in the past but they have won me over with their high quality service. (Full review, [...]

By: RingCentral Rings Up $12 Million - GigaOM

RingCentral Rings Up $12 Million - GigaOM — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 20:29:41 +0000

[...] some 50,000 customers, making it one of the more successful players in the hosted VoIP sector. I was highly skeptical of RingCentral when it launched, but I guess there are 50,000 reasons why I was wrong. (I am going [...]

By: Jaxtr’s Challenge: Turn Try It Into Buy It - GigaOM

Jaxtr’s Challenge: Turn Try It Into Buy It - GigaOM — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 08:01:41 +0000

[...] Even then, there are no guarantees Jaxtr will succeed. If the promise is cheap calling, it’s just the same old VoIP thing. [...]

By: Michael Cerda

Michael Cerda — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 16:26:27 +0000

why is anyone still talking about “VoIP”? The geeks from 1997 called and want their acronym back.

if you’re an entrepreneur and you’re still using this term in your pitch somewhere, you’re missing the forest for the trees.

By: Vonage: How Low Can You Go? « GigaOM

Vonage: How Low Can You Go? « GigaOM — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 21:30:27 +0000

[...] but ultimately something dramatic needs to happen for the company to dig itself out of this hole. As I said earlier this week, playing the cheap voice game is fraught with risk. Share This | Sphere | Topic: Voice [...]

By: Kiwi Bloke

Kiwi Bloke — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 15:02:05 +0000

Yep there is more coming than cheap phone calls. Look to the Sylantro Global Summit next week and who Sylantro is partnering up with, ie Cistera Networks and Aastra.

By: anshusharma

anshusharma — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 07:43:49 +0000

This comes down to sunk costs. For the largest phone carriers (landline & cellular) the incremental cost of a minute is pretty close to 0. There is no big cost advantage that VoIP has over existing networks. The cost of acquiring customers and customer service on the other hand decrease as you scale. If the killer app for VoIP is a (cheaper) phone call, they will continue to struggle and die.

Yes, VoIP have hurt profitability for the big carriers but just because you hurt the big guys doesn't mean you automatically capture the lost value.

If any of you has questions about this. Call me!

By: RandomThoughts

RandomThoughts — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 20:02:00 +0000

Now that Vonage lost another $69.5 mil to Sprint, maybe that will give you something to write about concerning VoIP?

By: Sean O'Mahony

Sean O'Mahony — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 17:18:56 +0000

Let me just put the notion that Cubic Telecom is all about “cheap calling” to bed once and for all. We’re not. We never have been and we never will be.

We’re about better value. If you’re paying $1 a minute for a call now we’ll get it to you for 20 cents. If rates from the carriers come down to 20 cents we will find a way to get it to you for 4 cents and we’ll still make good margins.

We’ve made money this way for the past 5 years. We know what we’re doing and we’ll just keep doing it.

By: James Seng

James Seng — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 14:44:14 +0000

Agreed that incumbent will always win a price war, if they choose to fight it. As such, the value in any VoIP offer must be more than price.

That is not a new idea; some of us talk about it several years ago. But till today, I havent see any interesting play.

Jesse comments about VoIP is right on the mark. Cubic telecom is interesting not because it uses VoIP but because it hides it from the user. :-)

By: Markus Göbel's Tech News Comments

Markus Göbel's Tech News Comments — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 07:22:37 +0000

After reading it again I think this post is too US centric. The world is bigger.

In Europe often there is no option to “call your local phone company and cable company” and “see how low prices have gotten”. Pure VoIP still undercuts every phone or cable company offer, especially when it comes to international calls. The incumbents still don’t use their scale advantage which leaves room for VoIP players.

The Sun Rocket debacle is no example for the entire world but just a case from the particular country USA where phone calls are cheap anyway.

By: Om Malik

Om Malik — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 22:55:20 +0000

Amen to that Jesse. I couldn’t have put it better.

By: Jesse Kopelman

Jesse Kopelman — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 22:50:38 +0000

I’ve always though that VoIP is a feature, not a standalone service. Maybe the right metaphor is ingredient. If VoIP can make your product better, good, but otherwise who cares? Vanilla extract is crucial to many a tasty cookie, but I’m not too keen on sucking it straight from the little brown bottle.

By: Raymond Padilla

Raymond Padilla — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 20:19:20 +0000

Om, for international calls VoIP is still a significantly better deal. For domestic calls, the Skype flat rate for US and Canda beats AT&T and Comcast.

By: omfut

omfut — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 20:14:11 +0000

You are right on the money Om. We were all so excited about the prospect of voip changing the whole game plan and replacing the circuit switch network. It’s never going to happen. The recent sun rocket debacle and vonage struggle clearly shows pure voip services companies will struggle to survive. I was very upbeat about the prospect of VOIP innovation happening in web 2.0 space. I believed that innovative VOIP services rather than pure voip services are going to make it big. Off late, I have started to loose that hope. I couldn’t recollect any VOIP innovation in the web 2.0 space that is revolutionary. Look at jaxtr, they started as VOIP widgets for social networking, Later changed their business strategy to focus on international voice calling. Having said that, I still feel we could achieve lot more using IP has a platform. I see great potential in Services Over IP ( SOIP ).

By: Om Malik

Om Malik — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 19:59:25 +0000

Raymond,

you should call your local phone company and cable company. see how low prices have gotten and if you are a non-geek consumer, you are getting a pretty good bargain.

i think we forget that in the end, cheap calls are done best by the big players. that is one of the reasons why low cost flat rate plans from incumbents are quite popular.