[asterisk-users] any possibility of Vonage Integration

[Matthew Rubenstein]

On Wed, 2006-12-06 at 13:03 -0500, Vijay Gandhi wrote:
> must say very nice & deep calcutaion....

	Thank you. Did you test it for errors?

	There's also a factor of 6/6 (or whatever) billing vs Vonage $25/75
flat, which can save in generic bills. It might even save an average of
about 10%, if calls average 5min, more/less for shorter/longer average
calls. But again, any price savings competes with Vonage's simplicity,
basic reliability, zero overhead costs, and support services, as well as
other calling features and their include ongoing operational costs.


> Regards
> 
> Vijay Gandhi
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matthew Rubenstein [mailto:email at mattruby.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2006 12:29 PM
> To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
> Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] any possibility of Vonage Integration
> 
> 
> On Wed, 2006-12-06 at 05:41 -0700,
> asterisk-users-request at lists.digium.com wrote:
> > Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2006 12:21:12 +0200
> > From: "Dovid B" <asteriskusers at dovid.net>
> > Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] any possibility of Vonage Integration
> > To: "Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion"
> >         <asterisk-users at lists.digium.com>
> > Message-ID: <019b01c71920$4a219070$972cfea9 at DovidLaptop>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
> >         reply-type=original
> > 
> > <snip>
> > > Don't be fooled by the flat rates of the locked-box providers.
> > > The real rates are so low these days most people pay less paying
> > > per minute than paying a Vonage style flat rate.  In addition
> > > people report if you start making really heavy usage of your
> > > Vonage flat rate so that they are losing money on you, they notice
> > > and try to stop it.
> > >
> > > $25/month will buy you close to 50 hours of urban SIP termination,
> > > it's down to half a cent in some of the big cities.   Are you
> > > going to average 50 hours on the phone each month?   Some people
> > > do, but most don't.   (Otherwise Vonage could not even pretend it is
> > > going to make money.)
> > <./snip>
> > 
> > Like any other provider, look at Vonage's tos agreement. If you go
> > over I 
> > believe 100 hours they slap you with a $50.00 fee. I have a provider
> > that I 
> > pay $5.00 a month to for my did and they asked me to use up to 2-3
> > channels 
> > for incoming, however they never capped me. Once in a while I use up
> > to 7-8 
> > channels with no problem. ( I tested once with all the cell phones
> > that I 
> > had and I got 10 channels at once !!). As for outbound I use voipjet
> > which 
> > is 1.3 cents. Like it was said above if you do the math it may be
> > worth it 
> > for you to drop vonage all together. 
> 
> 	I'm doing the math to find where Vonage and generic directly compete.
> If someone can check it to find any typo noise that I amplified with
> successive calculations, or other mistakes, I'd love to be corrected.
> But even on pure minutes, Vonage looks better than generic in the "sweet
> spots".
> 
> 	At $0.01:minute for each leg of US48 termination with a generic brand
> provider, $25:mo buys 41h:40m generic, or 20h:50m of 2-party calls
> generic. 100h generic would cost $120. If Vonage charges $25 for up to
> 99h:59m, that's already a savings of $94.99 (over 79% off). If Vonage
> charges $50 penalty at 100h, that's $75 for 100h, still $45 off (37.5%
> off). If that's the highest penalty threshold, then at the possible
> maximum (31d*24h*60m = 44,640m or 744h) monthly minutes would cost
> $892.80 generic, a maximum savings of $817.80 (over 91.5% off) at
> Vonage. Average monthly 43,830m or 730h:30m is $876.60 generic, so $75
> Vonage save $801.60 (over 91% off). $24.99 buys 20h:49m generic, beating
> Vonage; Vonage is always cheaper than generic above that duration.
> 
> Cheaper @$0.02:min 2-party calls:
> 00h:01m-20h:49m generic
> 20h:50m+ Vonage
> 
> 
> 	If minutes cost $0.005:minute per leg generic brand, $25 buys 41h:40m
> generic, 99h:59m Vonage. 100h generic is $60,  Vonage is $75, so Vonage
> costs $15 more (125% of generic; generic is 20% off). $75 buys 125h
> generic, but up to 744h Vonage (730h:30m average monthly). $74.99 buys
> 124h:59m generic, but nothing more at Vonage than the 99h:59m that $25
> buys. So at that half-cent minute rate, 41h:39m and less costs less than
> Vonage's minimum $25 (where $0.005 more buys you 99h59m). And generic is
> cheaper than Vonage for total average monthly usage from
> 100h:00m-124h:59m, from $0.01-$15 cheaper (from just over 0.01% to 20%
> off Vonage).
> 
> Cheaper @$0.01:min 2-party calls:
> 00h:01m-41h:39m generic
> 41h:40m-99h:59m Vonage
> 100h:00m-124h:59m generic
> 125h+ Vonage
> 
> 
> 	Those values exclude the extra Vonage benefits, including their ATA
> (not necessarily a benefit locked down) and their 24x7 service, which is
> better than nothing. A second channel (with a 2nd DID) costs less than
> the first, so the savings are greater, probably wiping out the window of
> generic superiority. 3-way calling is cheaper, potentially beating
> generic by at least 33%. And Vonage offers faxing that works (better
> than Asterisk's), and I believe their 800# DIDs are cheaper. When adding
> all the countries Vonage has added to their flat rate calling area
> (including US50, not just US48), even Vonage's simple minutes charges
> are better.
> 
> 	Which probably means that the generic minutes cost is higher than it
> needs to be. Probably mostly inefficiencies in the provider/consumer
> market, higher sales transaction costs (including less actuarized risks)
> among more reseller layers than necessary. Vonage statistically
> oversubscribes all those $25:100h transatlantic accounts, subsidizing
> them with most people calling within their areacode maxxing out at below
> 30-60h ($18-36 generic @$0.005:min, or $27) each month. Or it's all just
> a stock scam to enrich Jeffrey Citron with another Bubble-type equity
> sale on a losing business, which a lot of people are saying. But the
> competition will still drive generic minutes rates lower, especially
> outside US48 where $0.01:min is rare, even shocking.
-- 

(C) Matthew Rubenstein