A New Voip Knocking At The Door

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Today two news attracted my attention:

• Voxbone announces iNum, Internet’s First Global Country Code
• Calls between edgeBOX extensions, whether on-premise or around the world across Internet connections, will incur half-cent-per-minute charges

So, finally, it seems we will be free to have a real nomadic voip number. Boundaries are fading, at least at the phone level. I think Voxbone’s news is a great news, something we’ll remember.

Yes, I know: we’ll see dominant old voice providers opposing Voxbone; I can predict an immediate complete closure, no portability and no routing. But the path is marked and, sooner or later, all providers will conform.

Users of participating partners can call any iNum number; for free? Apparently yes, but Voxbone says that other providers, which will join later, can charge a small amount. And a call originating from outside the network, both from pstn and voip, will be charged by Voxbone and the revenue will be shared with partners.

So,  a voip call will be charged! And this leads to the second news: Junction Networks will charge calls between pbx extensions half a cent per minute. Till now, voip to voip calls were free. This had an enormous influence in the process of general voip adoption (and still has). The first thing an entrepreneur search for is cutting costs, so spending nothing to talk to a remote office was (and still is) appealing. But times are changing and people understand that the value of voip is in all new services available.

I like Luca Filigheddu’s statement “how can you make money and make your customers happy at the same time?”

I never agreed with free price politics, unless it was a temporary measure with a well appointed goal. So, I’m glad something begin to change.

Related articles

• What is iNum
• Voxeo - How to get an iNum - “a global phone number”
• Voxbone rolls out first iNum service