In an article posted to Fierce Wireless Europe, it appears that O2 UK has developed a new pricing structure for subscribers to make low-cost International calls on their mobile. As reported in the post, O2 will offer subscribers the ability have 'unlimited' (subject to a 5,000 min "fair use" cap) to call one (presumably fixed line) number in one country for just £5/month.
This is a good first step.
Checking O2's International Calling page, this offers significant saving over their published rates, or over their "International Traveler Service" (or ITS) rates, which shows the current retail rate to call the US at £1/minute. Ouch.
In a survey on how consumers in the UK market use mobile VoIP (conducted by Kineto Wireless), the primary use of a mobile VoIP client was to make discount International calls. This makes sense to me. A VoIP client on a smartphone requires the user to decide to launch the application and place a call.
Taking a look at Skype's pricing page, and they offer unlimited calls to any landline in Europe for $7.95/month, or to any of 40 countries around the world for $12.95. [Ed note: No asktrik for 'unlimited' on the Skype page]
We believe that mobile is the next battlefield for VoIP, and International calling is where the battle will be fought.
1 comment:
Orange offers free calls to EU-landlines for £5 on UMA when connect to a hotspot.
I'd rather prefer that plan if it was available in Germany.
There is unfortunately no UMA-provider in Germany, though...
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