On Instant and Gossiptel are both offering potential customers the promise of much lower telephone bills by letting them conduct calls over the Internet rather than a traditional phone network. Gossiptel, which launched on Monday, is targeting consumers, while On Instant has its eye on the business market.
Gossiptel allows free calls to any other VoIP user in the world, as long as their service is compliant with the SIP (session initiation protocol) standard. Gossiptel estimates that already around one million people worldwide are using SIP, and believes this is set to skyrocket over coming months.
"It really wasn't that long ago that a minority of us had email, but now almost everyone has an email address," said Kim Thesiger, co-founder of Gossiptel, this week.
"Given that BT has stated that it will make broadband available to exchanges serving 99.6 percent of UK homes and businesses by the summer of 2005, I believe the uptake of broadband telephony will rocket in the next 18 months with people signing up purely to take advantage of free and cheap telephone calls."
Calls can also be made to non-SIP lines (such as a standard BT number, for example). Prices vary, but calls to Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand cost 2.5p per minute or less at any time, which suggests Gossiptel will be a competitive service.
Users can sign up for Gossiptel for free. This gives them an 0870 number through which to make and receive calls, VoIP software for PC or Mac, and some Internet-based services such as an online address book. Anyone choosing this option, though, will need to supply their own VoIP handset or buy an Internet telephony adapter.
Alternatively, they could choose a Gossiptel starter pack. This can cost as much as £116, and will include an Internet phone adapter.
Because this adapter will allow a standard phone to handle VoIP calls, it means in theory that it could be plugged directly into a broadband line rather than going via a PC. It's more likely, though, that a user will connect via a router, so they can run their computer and use their VoIP connection at the same time.
On Instant's VoIP service is aimed at small and medium-sized businesses. It hopes to persuade firms to pay up to £12 per user per month for its service, which allows free calls between subscribers and also provides a range of Web-based services such as a CRM application and a monitor to show which other users are available to talk.
Talkback
you should look at Alwaysonvpn.com they have a great VoIP product and also do the IP VPN as well which for businesses is critical
In this market there is a good chance there will be a take-up, and that some people will want the service despite the fact that it will work sporadically or not at all, as they will be reassured by the money that they are saving. It can also be said that by not making calls at all, the same amount of money can be saved!
So, how does this impact the business market, where RAD Data Communications is producing technology enablers in the context of the larger VoIP market.
The residential market will always have people who want something for nothing. To an extent, the business market wants the same, until decision-makers realise (maybe too late) that they are putting their business at risk if communicating with their customers consistently is important to them.
By nature, the web is non-deterministic and of unknown capacity. At any given time it’s difficult to know who is using it and what they require. Given this, users must realise that sometimes they are just not going to get a connection that is of any use. Business users have to accept this will happen occasionally, and it won’t be a problem. If business users can’t say this same thing about their voice service, then alternatives should be considered.
Using RAD’s V-MUX product across an ISP network, the service level can be guaranteed. This is one alternative that will allow a business to get a much better call rate but retain the service levels they receive today.
I signed up for the Gossiptel VoIP offering after reading your short piece on UK VoIP.
I was absolutely amazed at how far VoIP has come on in two years since I last dipped my toe in the water - here is a UK company who are offering a two-way service between VoIP and the PSTN, with voicemail and full CLI mapping - and the voice quality (using my domestic 50:1 contention ADSL service) is absolutely superb!
Best of all - it does not cost anything to sign up!!!
the question is when are we going to be able to ditch BT ? Because as long as you have to pay their extortionate connection fee + ADSL subscription, savings promised by voip are only for the very heavy international phone user....
also check out pipemedia.com. I am not a customer yet bet their call charges are 1.5p / min rather than 2.5 on gossiptel, but they do have a £3 a month charge.
Is there a comprehensive comparisson guide anywhere ?
I am a Vonage customer for my US calls and the call clarity is better than regular phone, and calls to my cusomers in Europe are cheaper than UK traditional providers so I'm hoping for something similar from UK VOIP suppliers.
Dont bother with Pipemedia! Since being bought out by Legend the service is laughable! Just dont go there! I have never dealt with such a useless company!
Couldn't agree more about Legend - Pipemedia used to be fine. Legend are in all honesty the worst company I have ever had to deal with in every respect. Would leave them in a shot but it took 6 weeks and about 20 hrs on the phone to get my email and website working (during which time hey lied constantly). To top it all off, they charge a premium rate for phone support and leave you hanging on for a minimum of 15 minutes each time.
I would double check before you try Alwayson, having had an office in a building they serviced the phone qualkity was terrible. we had a consultant scan theirt network and he was most concerned. during what was supposedly a dos attack we overheard the cisco engineers in the building club talking about the conhnections to their core being layer 2 for voice and data. It was a shame as we liked the location but had to move as the Alwayson system was so poor. We really felt for the inhouse IT guys they were for all their efforts constantly firefighting.
Date: Friday 10th March 2006
Dear Customer
Earlier this week there was a serious failure of parts of the AlwaysON network that affected a number of customers.
This was a direct result of the fact that a part of our network was running unprotected during a transition between an interim and a long term solution for managing denial of service attacks. Unforeseen by the engineers implementing the change, there had remained a gap in the protection system during this transition. This gap allowed an overload of a supposedly protected part of the core infrastructure and the overload could only be rapidly resolved by isolating the public internet.
During the recovery from the problem one part of the network did not come fully back on line and this problem was the most difficult to isolate. The underlying cause for this inability to recover is being investigated by our supplier, but as a result, certain customers experienced a longer outage than should have been expected even given the magnitude of the original problem.
We have now audited the technical issues and the communication processes and have started to implement a number of changes. During next week we will issue an information bulletin to describe some key changes to incident communication. This will include robust mechanisms for sending updates to you and for you to contact us in the event of an emergency.
I can assure you that the gap in the protection has now been plugged, and that further actions are planned as a second line of defence.
AlwaysON very much regret the impact of this incident on a number of customers and the resultant inability to maintain adequate communications during the problem period. We apologise for the difficulties that this has caused you and your customers