VoIP Grows Competitive Companies emerge as regulation looms While state regulation looms large over the growth of the VoIP industry, new providers emerge to give Vonage a run for its money. Michael Robertson, the founder of MP3.com and Lindows, recently joined the VoIP party by launching SIPphone, a Session Initiation Protocol provider based service akin to Jeff Pulver's Free World Dial-up. Users pay $129.99 for two Grandstream BudgeTone 100 phones (see photo), and pay no additional fees; though unlike Vonage they can only call other SIP service users. Impressions of the service continue to emerge from participants in our VoIP forum. (See these two threads) Companies like Packet8 are also emerging to offer cheaper alternatives to Vonage. Packet8 offers unlimited calling to the U.S. and Canada for $19.95 a month, and the company is seeing the kind of good press Vonage experienced early on. Despite being half the price of Vonage's offering, not everyone is impressed with the service quality, as this thread in our forums indicates. Despite a growing field of competitors, the VoIP field faces a growing threat of state-to-state regulation, as we mentioned recently and as Jeff Pulver has been predicting for some time. ISP Planet today offered up their own report on the emerging state-level battles facing the young technology.
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 |  |  KAD ImagingJust Shoot ItPremium
join:2002-09-21
Hialeah, FL | Re: Ouch... Well, we have the same Cisco 7960 IP Phone pictured above and the sound quality on them is liveable. It sounds kind of like a 1st Gen cellphone from back in the early 90's. They do pack a lot of features in there!
I have no idea who the provider is tho...
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-The Cobra
"Heh, your broadband style is good grasshopper....but not good enough. Watch my Bellsouth style..."
1180K download 218K upload (BS FastAccess 1.5M/256K @ 19,000ft!) | |
| | | | | Re: Ouch... I think there is 1 big difference between cell-phones and VOIP. With cell-phones the early adopters paid very high prices for very few minutes and competition and technology advances brought prices down fast. I'm betting that the best deals for VOIP are right now and prices will only go up from here as mandates get put on it and it becomes more mainstream. | |
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| | Telamation Service Perhaps Vonage a little of both telecom and information service. Maybe a new way of looking at what a telephone company is, is needed. I am really interested in exactly where the line from information to telecom gets drawn. The outcome could affect much more than little old Vonage. | |
| | | | Re: Telamation Service Oh yeah..... has MN sent P8 and any other voice over broadband the same papers as Vonage?
If this is only about 911, then Packet and Voice pulse should be fine in MN. | |
| | |  The BeerI Love It When A Plan Comes TogetherPremium
join:2001-07-24
Omaha, NE | Re: Telamation Service Yea I was wondering the same thing, the PUC ruling was about the same time P8 dropped rate centers, I thought it might be related however MN remained.
It's like the Tivo/ReplayTV war (Or VHS vs Betamax) it's not always the first who wins, it's the one who makes it into the houses with the least legal overhead...
BTW
ReplayTV went Bankrupt
And show me a Betamax tape at the video store...
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Check Out My VOIP Uptime Report Page @ »www.thevoipforum.com/stats/stats.htm | |
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Reviews:
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| they're only trying to protect us well gosh, the states are obviously looking after the consumer's best interest, right?
And how can they do that without imposing the proper fees, taxes, charges, assessments. liens, tariffs and oversight of this new service?
What in the world would we do without state regulation? | |
| |  Unit649I B U, Who U B?Premium
join:2000-01-22
Stockton, CA | Re: they're only trying to protect us The same thing they do now-tax us heavily on vehicle usage, then don't fix the roads anyway.
All they will do here is form a committee to oversee this technology, and charge enough fees so another 20 or so people can be paid well to not do much 
Just like a work crew...like the one I saw on my street last week fixing a section of pavement:
-1 guy in the dump truck that was getting filled with the old pavement
-1 guy operating backhoe loading the pavement in
-1 guy with a shovel assisting the backhoe driver
-5 other guys using their shovels to lean on and watch
Remember though, thats efficency!
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U ::::Founder, ForeverChat IRC Network:::: »www.foreverchat.net | |
| | | | uummm FREEDOM!!
sorry had that whole braveheart thing going in my head.
ym | |
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| | now if we could get a cheap QOS home router Then we could make sure that our voice calls get the needed bandwidth. | |
| | | | Re: now if we could get a cheap QOS home router Define 'cheap'... I picked up a Netscreen 5 on Ebay for $200. You can define priorities on the rules and traffic. I use this device with my Vonage service and it works really well, whenever I use the Vonage service the Cisco ATA-186 gets priority over everything else flowing through the router/firewall. The Netscreen-5 is 'end of life-cycle' but it still does a great job. If you want to get something a bit more up to date grab a Netscreen 5XT for $600. | |
| | | The BeerI Love It When A Plan Comes TogetherPremium
join:2001-07-24
Omaha, NE | Re: now if we could get a cheap QOS home router Netscreen IMO the BEST firewall, my site www.thevoipforums.com proudly uses a 5XP.
It's feature set, even on a old 5 is GREAT, also look for the accelerated networks "Internet Companion" it's a re-labled OEM 5. They are unlimited for users and since they don't say "Netscreen" on them go real cheap. They will take the latest Netscreen firmware also!
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Check Out My VOIP Uptime Report Page @ »www.thevoipforum.com/stats/stats.htm | |
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| CompuTech0073Wanna Watch, I'Ll Double The Repair Rate
join:2002-03-13
Atwater, OH | 'cheap' like as in around $100...look at the LinkSys BEFSR81 | |
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| | |  VoIP audio quality
It support H323 equipment and NAT.
www.iponline.com.ar  | |
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