DrTCP
Yours truly
Premium,ExMod 1999-04
join:1999-11-09
Round Rock, TX
| Re: WHAT?!?! said by Fatal Vector:
Deals, shmeals. You still end up paying about the same per month. Forgive me, but I remember when VOIP was promoted as free phone service over the internet. Of course, I never believed that crap for a minute. I knew from experience that some way to make you pay would be the reality. I see I was right. Nobody is forcing you into this. It may very well be that this is not for you. Still, a lot of people are finding out that they are saving over the conventional telco especially when you take into account that PSTN providers load your account with non-fees decreasing the so called value of your deal. The calling between subscribers of the same VoIP plan is often free. A lot of the unlimited calling plans include Canada and even some European countries. Plus, you get all those caller id, call waiting, voice mail etc. free when you have to pay for for these for your PSTN. Heck, SBC is even charging for touch tone dialing...
Please note that these are VoIP services that connect to PSTN at some point. If you still want to do VoIP to VoIP there exist free alternatives. You can look at Skype and FreeWorldDialUp. FreeWorldDialup can either be used via a SoftPhone on the PC or you can get your own ATA to use a regular phone. There are pure VoIP services...
Doubtlessly because there is no profit to be made or gain to it. You are simply wrong. Do some research. LOL you AOL guys are a captive audience in a walled garden. You do not check outside often...
Money talks and altruism walks. Perhaps there is competition in the VOIP market, however, the point is, you still have to pay for it. If you want pure voip there is providers. If you want PSTN access (inbound or outbound) there is a charge for it. It is the cost of doing business but that cost is lower than regular PSTN phone you have. Obviously, money talks but less money is required to talk 
And as I asked in another post, what happens the next time there's a widespread power failure? My SBC line will continue to work like it did the last time, while my cell didn't. And neither will your fancy VOIP, because you wont be able to sign on to use it, or, your handset wont have power, or...you get the idea, I'm sure. I still fail to see why I should bother giving up dependable phone service just to save a buck or two. It is not perfect. Considering a lot of houses have only cordless phone which does not work at power failure this is probably not an issue.
BTW, my networking stuff is on a UPS. With the little power requirements I can get a 8-12 hrs of non-interrupted service during that time.
Still you can even save if you just get an outbound only VoIP provider (in particular if you call Internationally). Check out TelAIX.com for example. You can keep your PSTN line but you do not have to have a 1 and 011 provider connected to it.
Now, can you take your landline in Texas and move it to California on a trip? With VoIP you can. And people can still call you at the same number. There are ups and downs as well.
Open your mind. It may not work out for you but it does for a lot of people. But I agree the AOL/Time Warner variant of the VoIP service is unlikely to save anything to anybody. It is a bad product. |
