| $39.95 I am in no way trying to defend AT&T's pricing, however I have not seen anyone yet mention this.
In my opinion AT&T is basically copying Comcast's pricing at $39.95. Comcast is having great success even at this seemingly high price.
There is a significant difference between all other VOIP providers and U-Verse Voice which will allow AT&T to charge this higher price. U-Verse Voice does not get routed over the public internet. The profile in the gateway has a special amount of bandwidth allocated just for voice, and it is not routed over the internet, instead it goes over AT&T's private network. AT&T also will be providing users a battery backup system for the gateway incase of power outages. I know many of you will say that you can just as easily purchase a UPS for your VOIP connection, but the average user does not have their VOIP connected to one whereas virtually all U-Verse Voice users will have battery backup. If done right the system can be just as reliable as standard telephone service, whereas standard VOIP reliability depends on your internet connection.
Please don't flame me for posting this as I am only making a point that I have not seen anyone else make yet. |
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| reply to manhole
No one here is realizing this:
Comcast, AT&T, and all of the other MSOs offering VoIP service are not trying to beat any of the smaller VoIP provider's prices. To be honest, they don't care about a $14.95/month VoIP plan that another small company is offering. The average consumer is not shopping VoIP carriers...most don't even know what VoIP is. They are looking for a cost-saving POTS replacement...and that's exactly how Comcast and others are positioning their respective VoIP services. It's a full feature home phone service...not a cost cutting, stand-alone, VoIP service. Tech savvy people, like most in these forums, are the ones that are likely to purchase all of the various "independent" VoIP plans for $39.95/year, $14.95/year, etc., and are the people that are more likely to use a cell phone as their primary line. The typical mother and/or father of 5, senior citizens, or someone that currently has a POTS service and is over the age of 30 are the target customers. Seriously, could you imagine a 70 year old husband and wife screwing around trying to connect Vonage at their home? At $39.95/month, Comcast's CDV and AT&T's U-verse services are priced very competitively, and will almost always be less expensive that someone with anything more than a bare bones POTS service. Granted, a lesser price would be nice, but these companies are also trying to make money. Speaking of which, AT&T makes a lot of money on home phone service, and had to introduce VoIP plans to compete with cable. Think about it, all of the customers going to CDV, or any VoIP carrier, are coming from a POTS service. Many, like Comcast, have released more cost-effective local VoIP plans for customers that don't necessarily need LD, and want to pay as little as possible for the piece of mind that a home phone service brings...power outages over 8 hours aside. Keep that in mind when discussing why pricing is released at certain levels, and how expensive it is. |
