Click for Cheap Calls
Posted by Anne B. McDonald | Thursday, July 22, 2004 9:11 PM PT
Whew! Voice over IP news has been breaking right and left.
Venerable AT&T shocked us by announcing it will stop marketing traditional consumer telephone services--but will keep its more innovative VoIP offerings, including its recently launched $35
CallVantage Service. (By the way, you can get it for $20 monthly for six months right now). And telecom monster Verizon
jumped into the ring with its national $40 VoiceWing Broadband Phone Service.
One analyst, Andy Abramson of
VoIPWatch, isn?t impressed with the initial description of VoiceWing, saying, "They're charging more and delivering less. The features they are offering are very elementary." By the way, PC World reviewed eight smaller VoIP services earlier this year. You might want to check out
our report.
After AT&T launched its $34.99-a-month CallVantage service three months ago ($19.99 for each of the first six months), Vonage cut its monthly price from $34.99. Last month, McLean, Virginia-based Lingo.com launched a similar service that offers three months of free calling for users who sign up for its $19.95 Lingo Unlimited package (there's also a 500-minute package for $14.95). Lingo requires a $29.95 initiation fee but the Unlimited plan includes calls to Western Europe.
You forgot to include PennyTalk. You really need to evaluate that "cheap calls" provider. I have been with PennyTalk since Christmas - and it is AWESOME. You pay ONLY for actual calls made - at 1 penny a minute in the USA, 2 pennies a minute to Western Europe. 49 cents connection fee per call. NO MONTHLY FEE.
www.pennytalk.com
I am a loyal reader of PCWorld - and I hope to see a chapter on PENNYTALK!
So "let's read it"!!!!!!!!!!
A penny a minute really stinks when you have to pay .49 for every connection I have had Pioneer and pay only 3.3 cents per minute with no connection charge and no monthly fee. For your service to match it every call would have to be over 20 min.... with your service a 1min call is 50 cents 2min 25.5 cents even at 5min your paying over 5 cents per min ---- I think if you have more than 5 calls a month under 20 min you should change also they have a refer a friend program where you can actually get credited $10 per name. Anyone interested send me your name and e-mail and use me as your referer I would be willing to give you $5.00 when i get my credit. my e-mail is lawrence_murray@hotmail.com... even if nobody wants me to refer them I think its really worth anybody looking into.pioneer.com. when talking to other family members or friends who have the service its only 2.5 cents a minute. I save between $12-25 a month
sorry its pioneertelephone.com
The key issue regarding Verizon's VoiceWing service is that it's a double-play offering and not a triple-play offering. You can read my analysis in my VoIP blog here:
http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/