Hi
This is bad news for the VOIP pioneer, Bell and Telus pulled stings with
their political connections to allow them to effectively price the
privater out of the game. As for the ISP example of dsl, Bell allows
for just enough profit to keep them going but they truly have difficulty
making a FAIR profit.
As an example the tarrif crtc rate for wholesalers of lite dsl is
$19.95/mo . When Bell went to the crtc to set the price for us the
wholsaler, they where charging up around $30.00. Within a month of the
rate being set, they dropped their retail price to $19.95, can't make
money on that one. To compete with Bell regular DSL they price out at
$39.95 our cost before back-end transit is 21.50 plus a $50 setup (they
don't charge the retail client) and there promo is first 6 month $24.95.
Again very difficult to make money. As with the DSL I assume VOIP
providers need access to the legacy system, this legacy copper is
controlled by Bell and Telus. They can easily squeeze the private
company on the supply side and now on the retail side, just like the DSL.
There is one more area this development will negatively effect the
privater. The ability to finance growth for the privater will become
increasingly difficult if not impossible. Just as in the ISP business
the financial maketes figure BELL and Telus will put the small guy out
of business and the funding will dry up.
The end consumer doesn't care about the voip providers profit or ISP
profit for that matter, they just want the cheapest product.
I hope i am wrong but 12 years experience dealing with bell and I know
it will be a rough ride.
Cheers
Bernie
Julian Dunn wrote:
On Thu, Nov 16, 2006 at 10:05 AM, in message
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Simon
P.
Ditner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
That doesn't sound like very good news. VoIP is just getting across
that
chasm from early adopters to general consumers, and this overruling
seems
to cast the pioneers aside in favour of the incumbents to line their
pockets.
I particularly like this snippet: "companies such as Vonage, Primus
Canada and AOL Canada which have been taking away thousands of
traditional telephone subscribers" ... oh no, thousands, poor Bell,
surely this atrocity can not be allowed to continue.</sarcasm>
I don't mean to resort to trite political aphorisms, but given that the
current government is very pro-business, this is an unsurprising (though
disappointing) development.
Still, it doesn't necessarily mean the death of the pioneers. After
all, many third-party DSL providers operate successfully in the same
space as the big boys. Many people, and indeed companies, may make a
conscious decision not to go with the traditional telcos for VoIP
service, because of "out-of-band" factors (e.g. crappy customer service)
so there is still opportunity there.
- Julian
--
-- Julian C. Dunn, P.Eng. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
-- Platform Administrator * CBC.ca Production & Operations
-- Office: 2C310-J * Tel.: (416) 205-3311 x6988
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