[Asterisk-Users] VoIP Providers and Backbone Servers

[Subhi S Hashwa]

Monday, January 24, 2005, 12:20:46 AM, Jay Milk wrote:

> I don't want to be a kill-joy, but after reading your various messages
> over the last few days, I think you're in over your head on this one.  I
> suggest you first get your own * system up and running.  Then,
> re-examine your goals.  So far, you don't seem to be adding anything new
> to the VOIP community, so I'm at a loss at how you expect to make money.
> If you're reselling services, then you can't compete with the current
> players in the market, as obviously their prices would be better than
> yours.  If you're trying to bundle resold services, the big ones (like
> Vonage) have an insurmountable advantage in infrastructure, volume and
> installed base.  And lastly, if you expect to sell service along with
> your own softphone client (which you still have to complete), there are
> free solutions with established services out there (iconnecthere, etc).

> So, besides (weak) competition, what are you going to add?

Competition is what drives prices down, VoIP is a new challange to
traditional telecoms many are starting to wakeup to the fact that soon
you will no longer have an area code, country code, but rather a
global number that is yours and will follow you where you go globally,
a much bigger version of the GSM roaming we had in europe for years
without all the extra silly costs. once you have IP you have a phone,
you can collect messages, phone people and do your work on the move.

With the explosion of wireless hotspots this makes a VoIP on the move
a reality, some telecos are now realising that if they don't join the
'revolution' they'll be out of profitable call business and will endup
installing circuits for other voip providers to use.

BT for example here in the UK are planning to convert their entire
network to VoIP based network. IP to everyhome and that sort of thing
because they want a slice of the action. My guess is telecos will move
away from charging for calls and start charging for VoIP traffic but
it is a rapid development and my guess is some telecos will be caught
out and probably be out of business in the next 5-10 years.

Competition however small encourages companies to improve their
services, compete on pricing and look for ways to attract new
customers, many companies I know now use skype to contact staff
working from home, because it is convenient and easy to use.

Like I said, compeition isn't a bad thing, some people work on * for
the sake of technology development and some work on it in the hope of
making a living out of it.

Just my £0.02 :)


-- 
Best regards,
 Subhi S Hashwa                            mailto:lists at subhi.com
 When everything is heading your way, you're in the wrong lane.