 Jonbo298
join:2004-01-12
Council Bluffs, IA
| Free with a hitch... You can get free VoIP but you deal with the possibility of dropped calls, the voice quality going up and down, etc...Whereas with a landline, 90%+ of the time these issues won't happen.
So telco's will always charge for a landline, until VoIP overcomes its problems and then telco's will have to drop the price of a landline quite alot.
Then again, taxes on a landline are pretty big as it is.. | |
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TKJunkMail
Enjoy the sun
Premium
join:2002-03-03
Avalon, NJ
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
 ·Comcast
| Re: Free with a hitch... said by Jonbo298  :You can get free VoIP but you deal with the possibility of dropped calls, the voice quality going up and down, etc...Whereas with a landline, 90%+ of the time these issues won't happen. So telco's will always charge for a landline, until VoIP overcomes its problems and then telco's will have to drop the price of a landline quite alot. Then again, taxes on a landline are pretty big as it is.. I agree. But a few corrections. Change that 90%+ number to 99.999%+. Landlines are dropping in price, especially long distance which can be gotten for about $.03/min including taxes and USF fees. And what the telcos lose in landlines they more than made up for in their wireless subsidiaries. Does Rupert Murdoch also think wireless will be free too.
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cdru
Go Colts
Premium,MVM
join:2003-05-14
Fort Wayne, IN
| Re: Free with a hitch... What telco do you use that gets five-9's and is dropping price? Before I canceled Verizon to go with ViaTalk, they had the same price that they did 5 years prior with regard to local phone service. And my line quality was acceptable, but nothing to write home to mom about.
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Quis custodiet custodes ipsos? | |
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| | | Ahrenl
join:2004-10-26
North Andover, MA | Re: Free with a hitch... I have Verizon. With taxes and fees it's $50/mo free long distance anywhere in the US. New plan last year. I'm actually probably going to cancel because Comcast won't drop my rediculous $130 cable/HSI w/o surrendering my landline. | |
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cdru
Go Colts
Premium,MVM
join:2003-05-14
Fort Wayne, IN
| Re: Free with a hitch... said by Ahrenl :I have Verizon. With taxes and fees it's $50/mo free long distance anywhere in the US. New plan last year. I'm actually probably going to cancel because Comcast won't drop my rediculous $130 cable/HSI w/o surrendering my landline. Is that 50/month before or after taxes/fees? When I had Verizon still I was paying $35 for the local package with the usual bells and whistles. After taxes it was closer to $42 or $43 IIRC. Add on a few hours of long distance at $.05 and my bill was usually around $55 or so (plus DSL fees). Now I pay a little over $8/month for unlimited long distance and all the extras I had before plus more. Most of the time the call quality is as good if not better. Occasionally there is a slight echo on either end or some other problem. For $46 in savings per month, I more then pay for my 15/2 FiOS line.
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Quis custodiet custodes ipsos? | |
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hurleyp
join:2000-06-20
Ottawa, ON
·Rogers Hi-Speed
| It will probably be "free" in the sense that email is "free". We would pay a flat monthly fee for our connection and some database entry with our phone number (or equivalent).
Paul
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"I reject your reality and substitute my own." | |
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rachelsfx
join:2004-09-27
Pensacola, FL | May the Death Star be destroyed! | |
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MooJohn
join:2005-12-18
Milledgeville, GA
 ·Windstream
| Think about it: internet traffic goes over the same lines as voice. We didn't (directly) pay anything for the internet traffic going over these backbones, yet we still agree to pay by the antiquated system of "how many miles apart are the two parties" when paying for telephone calls. How ridiculous!
Phone co's will say that voice calls are more expensive since they tie up a line for the entire duration of the conversation. Data transfer is switched, meaning more data can flow over the same number of lines. Great. Convert voice to data for the long-haul routes and treat everything as data, even using (*gasp*) traffic shaping!
If I can communicate with anyone anywhere in the world for roughly $45 a month no matter how much bandwidth I use, I think we deserve the same ability with the simple century-old telephone.
Just like cable companies fighting to keep you from choosing other local stations on your dish television, phone companies will fight till the end to preserve the cash cow they have now in local phone service.
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John M -Cranky network guy | |
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Bobcat
Premium
join:2001-02-04
Bedminster, NJ | Yeah, right And nuclear power will be "too cheap to meter". | |
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footballdude
Premium
join:2002-08-13
Imperial, MO | not ever I don't think a land line will ever be free if that's all you have, but I do believe bundles will come along that pretty much include POTS for nothing. | |
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| Ahrenl
join:2004-10-26
North Andover, MA | Re: not ever Comcast, and SBC (I think) already give away voice (on a temporary basis) if you bundle it with Video and Net. SBC started giving it away with DSL when they were forced to offer naked DSL, in CA. | |
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plk
bo may sleep in loft
Premium
join:2002-04-20
Ogden, IA
| Only with Net Neutrality The only way we will see free voice is if Net Neutrality is maintained. This is one of the main reasons why the Bells want to do away with it. So they can charge VoIP enough to make sure Voice is never free. Least for many years to come.
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Thermaltake 2000a/Asus P4C-e/p4 3.4/ocz3500 2x512/WD.2x200g/raptor2x74 raid 0/ATI 9600/APC sua 1500/Logitech z-680/ Samsung 213t LCD/MX 1000 | |
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BK3
join:2001-04-10
Geneva, IL | Free? Double the price While I would certainly like to see free voice, I would think that if Ed Whitacre had his way, he would like to double the price.
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A difference which makes no difference is no difference. - Spock | |
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CSU
join:2002-10-21
Lagrange, GA |  Will Voice Someday Be Free?
www.skype.com And you can make free land line calls until the end of the year. It also has video conferencing as well. | |
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| samrocks
Premium
join:2003-07-30 | Re: Will Voice Someday Be Free? Does this deal with skype for free calling include international calls? | |
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| | raythompsontn
join:2001-01-11
Oliver Springs, TN
| Re: Will Voice Someday Be Free? My exchange students have all used Skype to communicate with their families in Europe. There was never a charge. Now these connections were computer to computer and no land line was involved.
If they called a land line they use 10-10-297 and could talk for an hour to any land line in Europe for about $1.60.
Contrast that with an AT&T direct dialed call to Nashville, only 150 miles away, and the charge was almost $5.00 for the same amount of time.
I have since used my cell phone for all domestic calls in the US as that is part of my cell phone package. I no longer use AT&T. | |
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| | Odie97
join:2006-04-19
Oak Creek, WI
| Yes, international calls are part of the deal, that is ... (Skype to Skype users) all calls are free.
I use it all the time for international calls and the service in my opinion is A+. I've used the conference call tool as well and had some minor delays, but that has seemed to improve over the past few weeks. Oh by the way, Skype way bought by E-Bay a while back.
Very cool service. | |
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grandpinaple
join:2006-01-03
New York, NY | Maybe... It might just be that there will be a dedicated line to 911 while the rest is free. | |
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Michieru2
zzz zzz zzz
Premium
join:2005-01-28
Miami, FL
1 edit | Just a thought... Voice is already free to those who have a 128K connection or higher. The existence of landlines where to provide voice but in a few year's they will simply be used as backup or other means of transport.
No more landlines, wireless is the next step of the landline, moving from a permanent to a dynamic phone is what provides flexibility for the customer. That means more money will be invested in wireless technologies and expansion. With the ability for mirroring that two phones can still have the same number.
One home based landline device with a antenna connected already wirelessly to the telco through air while having a small battery backup(so that when power goes out).
The other will be your cellphone.
But this is just an idea I had on what the telcos might want to do or the direction the telecommunications industry is taking.
P.S I just had gone completely off-topic but if it's free to make a P2P connection, then voice is free, online that is. | |
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avatarx
join:2000-05-17
Fairfax, VA
| ViaTalk I had Verizon local service for around $34-35 after all the taxes and fees. It didn't even have long distance call and it didn't have call waiting or Caller ID features because the amounts Verizon charge for them were ridiculuos. Now I'm paying $8 per month for unlimited calling anywhere in the U.S. and Canada and all the cool features like Caller ID, anonymous blocking, etc. I'm so happy with ViaTalk, I prepaid until 2009 ($100 per year). | |
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TampaVoIP
join:2002-05-10
Tampa, FL
| Five 9's? Where do you live & which phone co do you have that gives you that type of reliability? I can measure my downtime for landline in terms of days (~14 days last year), while the downtime for my VoIP is only a few hours for all of last year. Had similar results for 2004, with the landline down even longer. | |
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| jazzy112
join:2003-12-05
Fargo, ND
| Re: Five 9's? up here the phones worked during the flood of '97, you really should talk to your public service commisioner if you are experiencing that many outages on a landline (unless they are hurricane related), there is just no excuse for that. Part of receiving those USF funds means they need to keep a well maintained system available to all. | |
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real money
@verizon.net
| not possible Unless you create MEGA wimax networks (and mobile devices to take advantage of it) which are FREE from taxation, regulation, voice will NEVER be free! Even if this paradise were to come to pass, there are REAL costs associated with running a network. This real money won't be subsidized by the government and I know no voip company outside of skype even doing/considering this move, and skype free calls is temporary.
Reality: dirt cheap. maybe. free?!? nope.
remember USF fund, fcc taxes, regulation of POTS in fees still on the books? These snap you back to reality like a pork fried korean missle. | |
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Will Voice Someday Be Free?
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