Byod

[VOIPoTim]

First just so we're clear, we're not going to force any existing BETA users to stop using BYOD. You'll still be able to continue as a BYOD user, but it'll be 100% unsupported and we can't gurantee things will always work for you.

Right now we really have no plans for BYOD publicly and we will not be allowing anyone new who is not grandfathered in to have BYOD service.

We are evaluating several options for softphones at this point, but I don't have a solid answer for anyone yet.

Again, I know BYOD is important for some users and can appreciate that. For our business model and mass market target though, it just doesn't work well.

This is probably not what anyone wants to hear and it's certainly not what a lot of companies will admit, but it's just reality....

1) BYOD will increase support load. Not may or might. It 100% will. Even if we tell people BYOD is "use at your own risk", most people will invariably "forget" that when they run into a problem. They will want to check and see if it's a system-wide issue just in case it's not on their end.

For most people, if they can't find a problem on their end, they subconsciously low their opinion of our service as well. They may not be able to pin it down because the problem may/may not be on our end, but the reality is it's not working for them for some reason. It's kind of like being in a bad mood when you go to lunch with someone. They may have not done anything to you, but you may just not be in a good mood. It's similar in that if a feature or service isn't working for a BYOD user, they get irritated.

2) Reviews, forum posts, etc are affected when a lot of people using BYOD are posting when they have issues. While they may not be asking for support, they may be talking about the problems that come up in forums, etc. New users can see things like this and instantly be turned off because it gives the appearance that the service has a lot of issues even if it doesn't. In terms of reviews...if something doesn't work with a BYOD user, they're not going to lie and say it does and likely they're not going to try to apologize for it (but I think it would work if I was using their ATA). If something doesn't work for someone, it doesn't work for them. Let's be honest, most people care more about their own opinion than those of others.

3) When we're dealing with residential unlimited plans, we're dealing with averages and pricing is based on the average user (total usage, calling patterns, etc).

When we open things up to all devices. we can't control the context under which someone can use our service. When we can control the context, we effectively force people to operate within or close to those aveage usage patterns.

As an example we don't want people using an unlimited plan on an Asterisk server where they can share it, etc. We also don't want people routing all the "expensive" calls out using their unlimited account and all normal calls using someone else either.

I know a lot of people just play with Asterisk, etc as a hobby and would still be within an acceptable range of usage, but there is a huge amount of fraud and abuse out there. The more we limit exposure to that kind of thing, the lower our prices are and the better the service levels are.

This is not just VoIP...it's anything unlimited...particularly when there's the ability to share or selectively use (like routing expensive calls only).

Netflix offers unlimited rentals, but it's pretty well-known they control the context in which you can get your DVDs with mysterious delays in shipping time. An all you can eat buffet wouldn't allow you to have 5 people at your table only ordering the salad portion while you go up and get the other stuff and bring back to them. They'd all have to order the full buffet. In web hosting, everyone may offer thousands of GBs of space, but anyone using that much space will always hit a limit somewhere else in the plan or violate the TOS in some way.

4) Systems evovle and things change whether it's network setup, the way certain features are handled, etc. Especially when you're dealing with massive growth, you will constantly be making changes and improving things.

While we can confirm changes will work well on supported devices, we can't for all devices.

Another thing that's similar is security. It's important that our systems are as secure as they possibly could be. There is a ton of fraud in this industry. As we tighten things, this is another area where BYOD users could be impacted.

Invariably, this causes there to be occasional issues where BYOD users have a "I didn't change anything and this stopped working". Well sometimes when that happens, it's not you, it's us...

Ultimately, we're here to offer the best possible service, be able to scale well and handle a massive customer base, and be profitable doing it. Our policies, procedures, and pricing have to all be made with this in mind so we can achieve those goals.

I challenge anyone to find a company that support BYOD with a sizable customer base.

Again, I'm just being honest about it. Take it for what it's worth.

[gbh2o]

First just so we're clear, we're not going to force any existing BETA users to stop using BYOD. You'll still be able to continue as a BYOD user, but it'll be 100% unsupported and we can't gurantee things will always work for you.

...deleted...

Again, I know BYOD is important for some users and can appreciate that. For our business model and mass market target though, it just doesn't work well.

This is probably not what anyone wants to hear and it's certainly not what a lot of companies will admit, but it's just reality....

...deleted...

I'm glad I don't have to give up my BYOD devices, since you hooked me with your _service_ :-) But honestly, as a beta tester, I would have gone away happily to help ensure your business model is successful if you had banished us. No problem... that's what happens to beta testers; I don't believe we should expect any special privileges, just because we had some free time on our hands and could volunteer. :-) Our reward is just seeing something we contributed to become successful.

At the same time, I don't believe any rational company should support BYOD on anything other than a PAYG/on-demand plan which helps protect both ends with it's inherently limited balances. I think the hobby asterisk users of us, as well as the SOHO and commercial users, recognize that PAYG/on-demand service is really the most economical path for us. We can understand and appreciate the usefulness of the Express plan while we pine away waiting for the Carrier system to rise from the ashes, 'one-of-these-days-real-soon-now'! ;-) Hopefully the beta testers you have grand-fathered will not abuse your 'founders' plan too badly. Of course, without the ability to set the outbound CID, it is restricted pretty much to properly servicing a single outbound location anyway.

The true home/residential user has no idea how many minutes a month they need or want, so they willingly join the 'unlimited' herd. And, for most of them, really will 'overpay' to make sure they always have enough under unusual conditions. They just want it to work when they pick up a handset and don't like surprise changes in their monthly budget. You should do whatever necessary to ensure that is what they receive since they will be the great majority of your clients (for now).

[christcorp]

Personally, the only advantages I've ever seen with BYOD are 1)Convenience of immediate service and 2)Dial plan / feature codes that a provider might not provide. Don't get me wrong. Those who know me, know that I have about a dozen pap2, rt31p2, zoom, and dlinks floating around. All unlocked BYOD. That's not counting the locked vonage/packet8/etc... devices I have.

Yes, it's fun to play with them. And using fxo/fxs cards, I could go the cheap experimenting by taking my voip adapters and connecting them to a trixbox and such to play. But all in all, except for the hobbiest, there aren't really any need for a byod service.

If the provider's features and codes are all done at the SIP server level, and they have all the dialplan and codes available; and/or allow you to make unique codes in your online account; e.g. call routing 511/411 etc... Then what is the advantage of a BYOD? There really isn't one. The only real advantage is calling up a provider and being connected 5 minutes later.

Vonage and Packet8; the largest 2 3rd party providers, don't do BYOD and they have the largest customer base. They also have probably some of the best uptime rates and lowest customer equipment issues of all the providers. Almost every provider offers the adapter for free, along with other perks, so price definitely isn't an issue either.

I'm not bringing this up for arguments and debating purposes. I only bring it up to try and understand the "Why" factor. Other than the "It's mine and I want to use MINE" argument. As well as the IMMEDIATE service capability; maybe someone can share what advantage to a normal telephone user, having BYOD offers? Even those who are serious about trix/asterisk use direct IP connection. Just curious about what an unlocked PAP2 offers the customer that the grandstream 286 and vpanel access that voipo offers doesn't. Again, not trying to start a debate or argument. Just trying to figure out if there's some feature or capability that the BYOD device offers that maybe VoipO could accomodate from a different perspective. And the MAJOR REASON I bring this up, is because of comments I read in the BBR/DSlReports posts where some people said if they cant do BYOD with VoipO, then it was an immediate DEAL BREAKER!!!! WHY? I just don't get it!!! Later... Mike....