VERY deep. You can't get something from nothing, and you will
have to pay for the calls your users make. If you can subsidize
it with advertisements and such, all the power to you - but in
my opinion ad-supported free calling won't work unless you're
pretty strict on how much calling credit you hand out. If you
give out too much, you won't make enough ad revenue to cover
calling costs. If you give out too little, users will see it
as too annoying and quit using it.
In the end, it's all economics - you can't take a product which
costs money (i.e. calling minutes) and turn it into "free". Skype
will end up getting a whole bunch of abusers on their network and
lose a lot of money until they shut it down. MagicJack will take
the money and disappear. Other such companies will have the same
fate.
The only company which does manage to offer "free" calling is
Betamax. Why? because it's not free. You BUY free days, which
makes it not free (but still very cheap).
I do agree with your assessment in general though. Although I
don't see what Skype is doing (or will do) as a major problem
for VoIP or for the market. The market is booming for VoIP, and
one company (Skype, MagicJack, etc.) collapsing will not change
anything. Sure- it'll make people think twice before jumping on
the next "all you can talk" bandwagon, but reputable providers
with a proven track record will still gain market share.
Just my .0323 cents. ;)
--- On Fri, 5/30/08, Mohammed Lambat <duxy786@googlemail.com> wrote:
> From: Mohammed Lambat <duxy786@googlemail.com>
> Subject: Re: [asterisk-biz] How is Skype pulling this off ?
> To: asterisk-biz@lists.digium.com
> Date: Friday, May 30, 2008, 12:20 PM
> The Skype model has created a lot of stir in the Telecoms
> market since its
> launch and until its demise in to the black hole of Ebay.
> For one, it has
> proved that calls over the Internet work and people are
> willing to use it;
> however, this model has also proved that giving something
> away for nothing
> has no real rewards.
>
> Consumers on the other-hand embrace the model and love the
> idea of FREE,
> this in turn had a negative impact on VoIP especially for
> medium/large
> enterprises that were looking in to VoIP and discovered
> Skype, and turn
> their back on it. Real VoIP is noway near as simple or
> cheap to deploy as
> Skype made out to be and these associated cost as usually
> passed down to
> consumers on a commercial model. VoIP is still a lot
> cheaper than PSTN
> deployment and most opportunities are ready and waiting to
> be snapped up in
> emerging markets. Just to give you an idea, I received a
> call last week from
> a contact within a large international telecom provider,
> who is looking to
> deploy Asterisk in Africa. They are looking for team who
> can deploy, support
> and maintain the infrastructure of I quote; "8
> potential installations which
> run from Telco's with just 300k subs through to 8.5mil
> subs" (we, at
> Pophongo, are too busy to take this on, however, any
> interested parties
> contact me off list to discuss this). Skype giving away 10K
> minutes, will
> just result in another failed attempt to make a viable
> telecoms business.
>
> For those of you that have never spoke to me, which is a
> majority in this
> list, I am currently working on a project which will turn
> this whole
> argument on its head. Just to give you all a little clue,
> have a look at
> http://www.pophongo.com, am not going to say a whole lot
> more, but what I am
> going to say is, taking on the Skype model and
> re-establishing a market
> after Skype in the VoIP arena is going to be difficult for
> anyone, so were
> planning something away from all this chaos....watch this
> space….
> Mohammed
> Pophongo.com_______________________________________________
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