RSSVonage Offers Free Calls to Subscribers
By Ed Oswald | Published January 22, 2007, 5:13 PM
In an effort to continue its growth, VoIP provider Vonage is offering a new service that would allow anyone in seven countries to contact its customers worldwide for the price of a local call. In addition, the service would allow overseas customers to place calls to U.S. 1-800 numbers.
Vonage is the nation's largest VoIP provider, currently serving over two million subscribers. However, even in the face of success, the company continues to struggle financially. Vonage faced a disastrous IPO in May, and continues to lose money.
Thus, the company has attempted to expand its customer base through new service offerings, such as reselling EarthLink municipal Wi-Fi in a deal announced earlier this month.
For the new service, dubbed V-Access, local access numbers have been set up in the U.S., Canada, France, Italy, Mexico, Spain and the U.K. The solution would offer frequent travelers such as businessmen and college students to keep in touch with loved ones, as long as they are Vonage subscribers.
"Once again, we are proving that Vonage goes above and beyond the traditional phone carriers by offering our customers and their families another great, inexpensive way to stay in touch while on overseas business trips, study abroad programs or just vacation," CEO Mike Synder said in prepared remarks.
With V-Access, the company is betting that the potential savings for some may be an added incentive to subscribe to the service. It also sets Vonage apart from the competition, as larger telecommunications providers such as Verizon, and cable companies like Comcast have begun to offer their own VoIP services.
Why use Vonage when skype is available for free to other skype users and right now 15 bucks to non skype users in the US for the year.
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Vonage isn't a true reality however, very much like the dot com garbarge of the late 90's. It loses millions every quarter and is only sustained thru venture capital money. If they had to charge the real price to be revenue positive none of the 2 million customers would take the service. Vonages game is to build the base and sell it for a huge win fall. Eventually there will be a correction in the voip market and prices will go up.
At our company we intend of offering plain old telephone service but with very competitive prices. www.PioneerTelephone.net is the lowest price phone carrier in the USA with an all fiber network.
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The 7 countries:
U.S., Canada, France, Italy, Mexico, Spain and the U.K.
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Vonage is a money grubbing outfit that screws you every chance they can to charge for what you can get for $14.95 for the entire year by using Skype.
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Hmmm, you forgot to include the cost of the computer needed to run Skype!
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Vonage's service is cheaper than any US phone company's service, and yet they're "money grubbing"? I fail to see how that's possible. Only one or two companies offer phone service of any sort for cheaper.
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I have the cheapo Vonage 500 minute plan, and I think I use less than 40 a month? *shrug*
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Vonage needs to go above and beyond the telcos and the MSO's although they still suffer from the same problem TiVo faces.
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