Mass market VoIP comes to UK from US’ Vonage |
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Published
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Sat, 21 May 2005 15:00
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US-based broadband telephony company Vonage yesterday stole a march on British Telecommunications by launching its voice over IP (VoIP) service in the UK.
A spokesperson of Vonage said the company had used the last five months for a soft launch and to train its customer service staff. Special training for the New-Jersey-based staff included subjects like British post codes, phone number conventions and how to spell Welsh names, which were British peculiarities.
BT has been unable to keep up with competition despite spending millions in trying to transform its traditional network into a digital one. In November it had even offered free internet phone calls in a bid to lure more subscribers to its broadband offering.
With Vonage’s £9.99-a-month flat-rate residential phone service, subscribers will be able to make free local and national calls, except international calls and calls to mobiles. The service includes low international rates and features such as caller ID and voicemail. Subscribers can use any existing fixed-line phone when they plug into a Vonage enabled broadband router.
Vonage has thrown in an £18.99 small business offering that also includes a fax line.
| For the service one will require a broadband connection and a Linksys-made router (costing about £25), that will be available in Staples’ stores from next month. They can even be ordered from Vonage’s website.
In a bid to be competitive, Vonage has allowed customers to keep their Vonage number even when they move house, thus getting past the geographical limitation dialling code and area. E.g. If a customer has a London number, he can call and receive calls on that number even if he moves house to outside London, so long as the router is connected to the Net.
The Vonage spokesperson said his company aimed for the mass market. When asked how many customers Vonage currently had in the UK, he said he could not reveal the exact figure but added that they were adding 15, 000 new subscribers every week in three countries the UK, the US and Canada. In the US the company is believed to have more than 650,000 phone lines. In the UK, BT is the main competitor with a huge customer base – in December BT had around 1.3 million subscribers to its broadband telephony service.
Currently Vonage’s customer service staff will operate from New Jersey and may soon add offices in the UK and Europe as business grows.
In a bid to leave no stone unturned Vonage will be employing its well-known strategy, i.e. partnering with retailers which proved most effective in the US with sales via retail partners accounting for 20 per cent of total sales.
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