Esat BT to launch residential VoIP

ChipZilla

From The Register (via Electricnews.net):

Esat BT has vowed to redouble its efforts to gain voice telephony market share, but may ultimately pursue it through voice over IP (VoIP) rather than traditional fixed lines.

Ireland's second largest telecoms company said that decisive action by ComReg and the government on the issues of wholesale line rental and single billing were immensely helpful to the company and would help it to make in-roads into Eircom's dominant market share.

But ComReg's actions will also help the other CPS operators in the fixed-line telephony market and Esat BT's CEO Bill Murphy acknowledged that the telephony market will continue to be "challenging". He further stated that Esat BT would continue its involvement with the Irish voice market, whether through fixed lines or through emerging voice over VoIP technology.

"We are a network company, the network is at the very heart of the business," said Bill Murphy, CEO of Esat BT. "But the new wave is in broadband and integrated solutions, integrating data and voice."

In line with its parent company BT, Esat BT is focusing on this "new wave" of businesses encompassing broadband, networks and managed services. Accordingly, it has announced a new product to the Irish market, whereby it will offer a hosted VoIP (voice over IP) service to its corporate, government and SME customers. This will allow customers to route voice calls across data networks and the Internet with no per minute costs and without investing in expensive infrastructure. The service would also provide a data network between offices and would connect to the PSDN telephone network to make calls to people who are not part of the VoIP network.

Esat BT says that it intends to extend the service to residential customers within three months and says that the service is already available to UK residential customers. Residential customers would plug an adapter into their PC, connect to the Internet using a DSL connection and then use headphones and a microphone to make voice calls.

"Voice and data will converge and fixed line will go away," said Murphy. "If I were Eircom I'd be very worried about hosted VoIP."

The new product comes on the back of better financial results from the company, which has been striving for profitability for a number of years. The company announced turnover of EUR289 million for the 2004 financial year, up 20 per cent from the 2003 financial year. The company has also cut operational expenditure by 18 per cent, by reducing its debt, consolidating its offices and disposing of non-core businesses.

Esat BT also announced that it is cash-flow positive and expects to make a profit in the current financial year. The company has been cutting its losses steadily over the past few years, from around €500m in 2002, €159m in 2003, but only €42m in the 2004 financial year

Given the woeful state of broadband access and the capping of bandwidth, how are they hoping to get VOIP into people's homes? BT's residential VOIP uptake in the UK isn't great and call charges are a joke. I wonder how long this idea takes to get shot between the eyes, or could it be something to kickstart the uncapping of bandwidth and access to broadband for more people?

eth0_

This has been posted already today.

But I think you're right about BT's charges, they offer no incentive to use VOIP calls over PSTN calls

ChipZilla

So it has. Oh well, feel free to delete or discuss.

It's definitely not cheap in the UK:

9.99 a month - line rental for yer ADSL
20 - 25 a month - ADSL subscription
6.50 a month - VOIP subscription
'free' phone adapter


Call charges:

Call type Daytime (inc VAT) Evening and Weekend (inc VAT)
Local & National UK only 3p a minute FREE (up to an hour)

Broadband 05 numbers 3p a minute FREE (up to an hour)

International to 24 countries* From 4p a minute From 4p a minute

International mobile** From 29p a minute From 29p a minute*

The standard minimum charge of £0.042 exc. VAT (£0.05 inc. VAT) will apply to each chargeable call, but not to Freephone services or to UK Evening and Weekend geographic calls.



Oh yeah, those charges are good :rolleyes: . The good old 'call setup charge' even though you're on broadband. If that's anything like what BT are planning here why bother?

Ripwave

Originally posted by eth0_
But I think you're right about BT's charges, they offer no incentive to use VOIP calls over PSTN calls

Unless ESAT offer this service to wireless Broadband customers - that €25 saving on line rental will cover a multitude of sins!

gt94sss2

Originally posted by ChipZilla
So it has. Oh well, feel free to delete or discuss.

It's definitely not cheap in the UK:

9.99 a month - line rental for yer ADSL
20 - 25 a month - ADSL subscription
6.50 a month - VOIP subscription
'free' phone adapter


Call charges:

Call type Daytime (inc VAT) Evening and Weekend (inc VAT)
Local & National UK only 3p a minute FREE (up to an hour)

Broadband 05 numbers 3p a minute FREE (up to an hour)

International to 24 countries* From 4p a minute From 4p a minute

International mobile** From 29p a minute From 29p a minute*

The standard minimum charge of £0.042 exc. VAT (£0.05 inc. VAT) will apply to each chargeable call, but not to Freephone services or to UK Evening and Weekend geographic calls.

Oh yeah, those charges are good :rolleyes: . The good old 'call setup charge' even though you're on broadband. If that's anything like what BT are planning here why bother?

You are correct in quoting the prices for http://www.btbroadbandvoice.com but one thing you won't realise (being based in Eire) - is that it is not actually targeted at ADSL customers here. (who mainly have USB modems and not ethernet)

Instead its aimed at attracting cable modem users and getting them to use BT for voice calls over NTL/Telewest's broadband network! (many telephone calls are more expensive on cable telephone lines than BT - they have a "connection charge" instead of BT's "minimum charge")

Hence:

9.99 a month - line rental for yer ADSL
20 - 25 a month - ADSL subscription

won't apply for the majority of their VoIP customers - as they will be using cable --> which mates it a much better deal

Also, I don't know what they will be using in Eire, but in the UK, "the 'free' phone adapter" is actually a Cisco ATA 186!

Regards
Sunil

Moriarty

Originally posted by ChipZilla
Oh yeah, those charges are good :rolleyes: . The good old 'call setup charge' even though you're on broadband. If that's anything like what BT are planning here why bother?

It's still routed over the PSTN at some point.


That's not to say that i necessarly agree with setup charges, just that if they can justify if for regular calls they can use the same excuse for VoIP calls to POTS customers.

ChipZilla

Mmm true enough, it may be going through the PSTN at some point. But surely not if you're calling aanother VOIP customer, which they charge at the same rate as calling a PSTN number. I suppose you could argue the toss on that one. As for targetting cable users, I dunno. The Esat press release mentions "providing a platform for Esat BT to launch future VOIP services to its base of 8,500 consumer broadband customers."

http://www.esatbt.com/ie/pressrelease/20040521.html

Who knows?

raeGten

There's an Irish company that's trying to get Voip up and running over here. They're called (surprisingly) VOIP ( http://www.voipirl.ie ).
I spoke with them at a show in the RDS recently and it seems there's an initial setup charge of €120 (as far as I remember) to cover the cost of the equipment and from then on you just pay for your calls. I was told there was NO monthly charge or rental to pay. Their call prices are below.
Destination VoIP Irl Eircom VoIP Irl Eircom
per minute per minute for I hour call for 1 hour call
Local 0.0317 0.0524 1.902 3.042
Evening 0.0126 0.0126 0.76 0.76
Weekend 0.0126 0.0126 0.76 0.76
National 0.0409 0.0817 2.454 4.902
Evening 0.0275 0.0492 1.65 2.952
Weekend 0.0126 0.0126 0.76 0.076

Now the catch. I use NTL for broadband and hardly use my phone line at all. I still need to have one though for things like the alarm in the house and such. But i Pay Eircom FAR more in line rental than I do for calls. So I was reaching for my credit card to sign up when they broke it to me that you can't recieve calls from mobiles or land lines. The problem lies with Comreg. They have to authorise VOIP to issue land line numbers and until they do you can MAKE cals and recieve calls from other VOIP users but not from land/mobile lines.
Still, I'm sure that Comreg will have the matter wrapped up in a week or two so I can tell Eircom what to do with their ever increasing line rental charge!!!

ChipZilla

Good link raeGten. I see on their site they're going to be reselling DSL soon. I'd be interested to see what kind of VOIP deals they might do once that takes off.