UKVoIPTalk.com

On Sun, 04 May 2008 00:36:26 +0100, Iain <no-one@hairydog.co.uk>
wrote:
[color=blue]
>Brian A wrote:
>
>e voip.co.uk[color=green]
>> forum, that 'residentials' weren't of any great interest to them. The
>> statement, as I remember it, was to the effect that the 'business' of
>> ALL the 'residentials' were matched by a single business customer.
>> It is not surprising that they don't prioritise 'residentials'.[/color]
>
>However, don't forget that the "New Platform" they developed was bult
>for residential customers.
>
>I think they still plan to launch new residential tariffs, but clearly
>there is some reason why they haven't. Perhaps they are waiting till the
>market settles down first. With free calls on offer from other
>suppliers, they'll find it hard to be competitive on price.
>
>Compare the POTS third party carrier market, where at one time calls
>were free, then 0.5p per call through 18866. Now they are around 5p or
>6p per call from the same company. A competitor would have been wise to
>wait for that rise before launching in opposition. Perhaps voip.co.uk
>are waiting for betamax to do the equivalent.[/color]
I can see the point you are making but I think that voip is a very
different landscape. There is more competition than just Betamax.
During the 2 years that I used voip.co.uk I got the strong impression
that Chris did the best he could, to interface between the
organisation and customers, but that he just put forward what he was
told and that was often just false promises. For example, right at the
start, we were informed that they would soon be making improvements to
the voicemail. The problem with it was that once you had listened to a
message it deleted, so, unless you could access the Net, there was no
chance to listen to it again. I will make a guess that nothing has
been done. It was also pointed out, on the forum, that 'residentials'
were very vocal. I have sympathy with that, after all how much
customer service can people expect for £20/year. Betamax don't offer
any customer service to speak of and you just have to accept that, so
why do people expect so much more from voip.co.uk?
If they have supposedly installed a new platform how hard can it be
to devise a tariff? They are doing OK with business so 'residential'
is probably not even on the back burner.
Life goes on. If they ever do start to take a positive interest in
'residential' then it is always possible to go back to them. If there
is a need to retain the incoming number I doubt that they'll take it
away. There are lots of Betamax companies to choose from, Vyke and
lots of others so it isn't that there aren't any alternatives.
I think that voip.co.uk are basically a good company but as far as
residential goes I'd just say 'move on!'.



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Brian A wrote:
[color=blue]
> I can see the point you are making but I think that voip is a very
> different landscape. There is more competition than just Betamax.[/color]

Well, there are lots of other companies offering voip services, but when
it comes to price-competitive voip, there is nothing except Betamax as
far as I know. I suspect that voip.co.uk can't be competitive with
betamax and also make a profit, so they are sitting on their hands till
Betamax prices rise.
[color=blue]
> I think that voip.co.uk are basically a good company but as far as
> residential goes I'd just say 'move on!'.[/color]

Indeed. I use Betamax for most outgoing calls, but keep voip.co.uk for
incoming and the outgoing calls that they are still competitive for (and
one of our offices uses voip.co.uk exclusively because it's not worth
the hassle of changing).

I'm still hoping that voip.co.uk will revisit the residential / SOHO
market. We have some clients who would use them.