I was anticipating this new strategy, and thought they'dprobably change rates for their international calls. Instead of lowering their prices they decided to put a sneaky charge of 3,9 eurocents on all calls. This connection fee will make free calls not-so-free. For Skype users like myself this would mean a total price increase of over 50%. Easy choice there.
So here we go:
VoipBuster is one of several Internet telephony services (also called VoIP-service) of Betamax GmbH & co. KG in Germany. Formerly VoipBuster was a service of Swiss based Finarea SA. VoipBuster uses a client software with proprietary protocol, but can also be accessed via SIP-protocol. VoipBuster features low call rates. Users can mutually call for free, and call for free to fixed lines in several countries worldwide (0 pennies per minute and no start tariff) for a limited number of days after payments to VoipBuster.
Phil Wolff at Skype Journal had a nice blog about Voipbuster's reaction to Skype's Connection Fee. I can't help but wonder how many new customers Voipbuster got due to this.
I love wicked publicists! Here's small-guy VoipBuster making fun of big corporate Skype just hours after Skype's announcement on its home page and in a news release sent through the same channels Skype uses.Skype increases all prices!
Cologne (ANTARA News/PRNewswire-AsiaNet) -
They kept millions of users waiting for more than a month, but today Skype (eBay) finally announced their new "pricing strategy"....
VoipBuster could not believe it: instead of lowering their prices they decided to put a new charge of 3,9 eurocents on all calls!! For almost all Skype users this means a price increase of over 50%!
Time to switch, because VoipBuster, the biggest rival of Skype, announced today more new countries can be called for FREE. Making the price difference even bigger!
Another reason why I like VoipBuster, is their cheap SMS text message service. Since I'm in France I'll be able to send unlimited free SMS text messages to mobile phones within France. This offer is not avai;lable for every country, but if you live in Australia, Belgium,
Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, it's free.
Check it here.
Well I hope that explains why I'm using Voipbuster. Still if you feel I should try another service, feel free to comment or mail it to me. I'm also looking forward to read about your favorite VOIP services and why you're using them. I'll give them a try and maybe I'll review them on this blog!
2 comments:
I had no idea about the new Skype 'connection fee.' That's tricky. Given the sort of profits one can expect to make in most popular consumer locations (figure something like my choice of VoIP provider who charges $0.018US per minute to the US and $0.02US per minute to most landline areas in Europe), that would mean to make up for that 3.9e charge, you'd need to remain on the call for as much as 27 minutes in order to come out ahead of the current pricing plan.
That's almost instant profit, as most people don't stay on the phone for an average of 30 minutes per call (the average is actually closer to 5-10 for most residential calls).
You're absolutely right. The funny thing is, Skype announced their 'New Pricing Strategy' like it was something we'd alllook forward too. I guess not.
There are some VoIP providers for whom this 'pricing strategy' paid great dividens when it comes to new users and hours.
VoIP, you're very knowledgable on these subjects, do you happen to have a blog too?
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