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PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

PX Eliezer704 to ConstantineM

Premium Member

to ConstantineM

Re: Vonage is a scam operation, period.

That's an excellent point.

I suppose the reason people sign up for Vonage is that they don't know any better.

TV ads do work, that's why so much money is still spent on them.

If people in the US market are not knowledgeable to the idea of switching away from the old phone company, the only advertising they see is going to be:

1) Their own cable company or sometimes their ISP.

2) Large competitors such as Verizon FiOS or AT&T U-Verse.

3) MagicJack which has always heavily pushed the ads.

4) Ooma (a small number of ads) which probably uses borrowed money to do it.

5) Vonage, which acquired millions of relatively high-paying customers because they were the pioneers, so they have cash flow for ads to bring even more high-paying customers. Since they also have outflow (churn) their numbers have been somewhat stagnant. As of June of 2011 they reported 2.4 million lines.

6) Skype, which has been promoted by folks like Oprah and Barbara Walters, and needs no advertising as a result. They seduced the entire news media of the world [Here is Wolf reporting from Bhutan by Skype]. And now of course Microsoft can cross-promote.

So, when we look at a Voipo or PhonePower or CallCentric, how is the [average] person going to know?

Average people are average, which is a tautology.

-------------------------------------------

"God must have loved the common people, he made so many of them."

That may (or may not) have originated with Lincoln.

Relatively few people belong to the IEEE or ACM, after all....
cell14
join:2012-01-04
Miami Beach, FL

cell14

Member

I have an advertisement allergy and my brain immediately shuts down when I see or hear an ad. But it remains an omnipotent tool. With the exception of my mom- and I pushed it down her throat- i was not able to convince one of my friends to switch from telcos, ,cables,U verses , MJ, Skype etc to decent VOIP providers. My neighbor who calls England every day still uses ATT and "special discount plan" 7c/minute plus a slew of taxes and surcharges and she would not even give a try to Localphone for 1c/minute straight. One of my friends in the NL actually refuses to call my Dutch DID because he expects some scam- he does not believe thAt he can talk to me in the US through it for free. Unfortunately, survival of the fittest is usually not the survival of the best.
PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

said by cell14:

I have an advertisement allergy and my brain immediately shuts down when I see or hear an ad. But it remains an omnipotent tool.

A lot of politicians certainly thought so....
said by cell14:

My neighbor who calls England every day still uses ATT and "special discount plan" 7c/minute plus a slew of taxes and surcharges and she would not even give a try to Localphone for 1c/minute straight. One of my friends in the NL actually refuses to call my Dutch DID because he expects some scam-

I'm curious, have you ever tried to present it to them as being the same type of thing as Skype, but better? Does your neighbor trust Oprah?

Heck, invite your neighbor over to your house, let her make a call to the UK.

But you are right, people will NOT do it unless they overcome some hurdle in their own mind. There is a lot of resistance which is why POTS survives.

A lot of ignorance too.

Even in RECENT years, a lot of old folks were still paying the monthly phone rental fees dating back to the old Bell System!

See:
»blogs.computerworld.com/ ··· ode/3538
»usatoday30.usatoday.com/ ··· ories%29