BellSouth have launched their own VoIP service for residential customer called BellSouth Digital Phone Service in Gainesville, FL. Although currently only available in the Gainesville area, BellSouth Digital Phone Service will be rolled out to more areas in the next few weeks.
The Digital Phone Service includes several features including voicemail, caller ID and call waiting. It is believed that the new VoIP service will be marketed firstly towards BellSouth’s FastAccess broadband customers, priced at $29.99 per month for residential users. In the future BellSouth will offer the service to small businesses, costing $59.95 on a monthly subscription.
BellSouth have in the past been a reseller of Vonage’s VoIP service in a small-scale trial called “DSL Talking” but will not be in direct competition with Vonage with the introduction of their Digital Phone Service.
The VoIP services marketplace has been hotting up recently with Yahoo and BT both announcing their entrance.
Safa rashtchy, an analyst working for Piper Jaffray, has maintained his “outperform” rating after Yahoo announced it’s recent VoIP service. Yahoo will be competing head on with Skype and Vonage in the rapidly growing VoIP marketplace.
Rashtchy said that although the Yahoo VoIP service is similar to Skype’s in many ways, it differs in one major way – “it is expected to be significantly cheaper.” The analyst believes that Yahoo will be able to push their VoIP service into the mainstream because of their strong brand awareness combined with cheaper prices than other competitors.
He also went on to state that Yahoo Instant Messenger’s 20 million existing users “will be the primary target for this service and most likely to adopt it”, helping Yahoo to gain traction quickly. Although the VoIP service will not generate a significant revenue stream in the near term, Rashtchy expects that the new VoIP service has the potential to generate in the region of $10 – 30 million for Yahoo.
BT has said that it intends to tackle VoIP powerhouse Skype head on with a revamped lineup of VoIP products and services. BT, the UK’s largest telecoms provider, has lagged behind Skype in recent years.
Skype have undercut BT tariffs to overseas destinations and customers have been flocking to Skype in their thousands to take advantage of the savings on offer. As part of their challenge, BT will undercut Skype’s call charges to 50 of the most popular overseas calling destinations.
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There has been a lot of talk recently about problems with VoIP and emergency 911 calls.
However, the boards of directors of the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) in the United States has this week approved a standard that will see VoIP calls routed through a traditional exchange before connecting with the local dispatch center.
The new standard is not required by law as yet, many leading VoIP service providers have implemented some of it’s parts in the last few months. The announcement of the new VoIP standard for E911 calls is cited as a major breakthrough that could eventually lead to mass-market adoption.
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Greenwood Communications announced today that it will be reselling ShoreTel’s VoIP product suite throughout the UK. Greenwood sees the new partnership as a step towards cementing their position as a leading VoIP service provider for small-to-medium enterprises in the UK and into large enterprises across Europe.
