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VOIPoTim
12-31-2007, 09:21 PM
Mirrored from the HostGator Forum:

We’re pleased to announce that VOIPo will be launching on February 1st with a trio of services as outlined below. The full line of services including Residential VoIP Service and Hosted PBX Business services will be phased in shortly after the initial launch.

Once all services are launched, you will be able to resell virtually ANY VoIPo service under your own brand and get the services from us at wholesale with a VOIPo reseller account.

The following services will be launched February 1st:

Toll-Free Service

With our Toll-Free service, you’ll be able to get a toll-free number and have it forward calls to any US or Canadian phone number or SIP address.

Estimated Pricing:

$4.95/Month (Paid Monthly)
$2/Month (Paid Yearly)
100 Minutes Included Monthly
Additional Minutes Billed at 4.9 Cents


Virtual Numbers

With this service, you’ll be able to get phone number from nearly 6,000 locations throughout the US and point it to your existing US or Canadian phone number or SIP address.

As an example, if you are in Dallas, you could order phone numbers from New York City and Orlando and have them both point to you in Dallas. This is especially useful if you want to have local numbers in areas your customers are in.

Estimated Pricing:

$4.95/Month (Paid Monthly)
$2/Month (Paid Yearly)
500 Minutes Included Monthly
Additional Minutes Billed at 1.9 Cents


Online Faxing

With VOIPo’s fax service, you'll be able to get a fax number which allows you to receive faxes in your e-mail.

When something is faxed to your fax number, it will be converted to a PDF file and e-mailed to you automatically.

Estimated Pricing:

$4.95/Month (Paid Monthly)
$2/Month (Paid Yearly)
100 Faxes Included Monthly
Additional Faxes Billed at 25 Cents

Here are some demo screenshots for the initial services:


http://www.voipo.com/demo1.JPG


http://www.voipo.com/demo2.JPG


http://www.voipo.com/demo3.JPG


More info will be posted as it is available. We look forward to working with you in the coming year and providing you and your customers with world-class telecommunications services.

usa2k
12-31-2007, 10:43 PM
If I read correctly, these are all incoming minutes referenced below.
None of those services function as outgoing.

My 1-877 number I have (from elsewhere) the remaining 7 digits match the wife's cell phone.
That was an extra fee ($20 I think) to choose a specific number.

I do like that it will work a-la-cart versus only for a VOIPo line
(Vonage/Packet8 toll free were for Vonage/Packet8 lines when I used them.)

VOIPoTim
12-31-2007, 10:54 PM
Yeah, the target for this is really HostGator customers looking for standalone services. It's a very low-support offering that will help us get things up and running and build our support staff working out any procedural items with support before we go all out.

When this launches, we will be offering live phone support for the BETA as well.


If I read correctly, these are all incoming minutes referenced below.
None of those services function as outgoing.

My 1-877 number I have (from elsewhere) the remaining 7 digits match the wife's cell phone.
That was an extra fee ($20 I think) to choose a specific number.

I do like that it will work a-la-cart versus only for a VOIPo line
(Vonage/Packet8 toll free were for Vonage/Packet8 lines when I used them.)

fisamo
01-01-2008, 01:10 PM
For the tollfree number, what options will be made available to customers? Specifically, choosing the destination number or SIP address is a given. However, I could envision customers wanting the ability to accept or block, at their whim, calls from pay phones--block due to the cost, accept due to the flexibility/'emergency use' capability or for business reasons. If payphone calls can be accepted, how much will they cost? Will they always cost extra (e.g. $0.50/call added to your bill, whether or not you've used all of your 100-minute bucket, or will a payphone call lasting one minute result in an 11-minute deduction from your monthly bucket?
Second question: What is passed along as CID? Will you pass along ANI (no option for the calling party to block)? Will you pass along the tollfree number, so the called party knows that the incoming call is on their tollfree line? Will there be any other method of notifying the called party that the call is coming in on the tollfree line? (Aside from messing with the CID, I don't know how the service as you've proposed it could notify the called party/subscriber that the incoming call is on the tollfree line.)

Third question (mainly to be obnoxious) : If you point an incoming tollfree number to a VOIPO Express number, will the incoming minutes be charged against both numbers?

I really like that price point for a minimal-use customer--$24/year to have an incoming tollfree number that gets less than 2 hours/mo usage is reasonable.

Will the virtual number option allow you to set up a voicemail box with wav-to-email forwarding, or will it be strictly a forwarding service? As with the tollfree service, is there any way the subscriber knows which number is dialed to make their phone ring?

N9MD
01-11-2008, 06:54 PM
I'm reluctant to ask, being a naturally shy and retiring person ;) --- but how will those of us who are not VoIP resellers (not "in the business") be dealt with by VOIPo? Not harshly, I hope. :(

It would be hard for me to peddle VOIPo service to people who are deeply sedated for their colonoscopies. :D

What generosity can we expect as non-resellers for our Main and Virtual VOIPo numbers -- and TF and/or FAX numbers?

VOIPoTim
01-11-2008, 07:16 PM
I'm reluctant to ask, being a naturally shy and retiring person ;) --- but how will those of us who are not VoIP resellers (not "in the business") be dealt with by VOIPo? Not harshly, I hope. :(

It would be hard for me to peddle VOIPo service to people who are deeply sedated for their colonoscopies. :D

What generosity can we expect as non-resellers for our Main and Virtual VOIPo numbers -- and TF and/or FAX numbers?

For the services outlined in this release, it'll be available to HostGator customers and anyone in this BETA at that pricing. Just slightly higher for the public.

Residential pricing I'll post in the very very near future.

In general, we wanted to fill the gap with a reseller solution because there is nothing good out there. There's nothing that focuses on the real entry level reseller. With HostGator, we lead the pack for the reseller hosting market, so it's logical for us to do the same for VoIP and basically have an instant reseller base (we have about 45K resellers at HostGator) overnight.

With that being said, we'll also be offering a direct service as well just as we do for HostGator, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Some people say the industry is getting crowded, but look at web hosting.... We alone have 45K resellers and that's a small piece of the industry. Now think about how many more people need phone service vs those that need hosting. It's a huge market and from our perspective there's very little competition in a lot of niche areas. Mass marketing is a little harder because of the cable cos, etc... Not impossible, just more expensive.

We feel that overall the total HostGator customer base (about 1 million domains hosted) will serve its purpose to shave our "mass marketing" costs, the HostGator resellers are jumping up and down waiting to resell the service so that end is covered.

Then we hit some niche areas with licensing deals (working on closing a deal potentially worth about 600K/yr for our Hosted PBX system now), apartment complexes, etc. This is the stuff we want to focus our marketing $$$ on since it has the biggest returns.

If the core areas are basically taking care of themselves and we focus on the niche areas, that puts us in a whole different playing field.

I have no problem playing in the lower end residential market as long as we can adequately maintain quality service. I'm just not willing to spend a fortune on marketing there when I can spend the same money marketing in higher impact areas.

At the end of the day though, none of this matters if we don't have a quality service, so the direct residential product will certainly be under pretty constant development.

N9MD
01-11-2008, 07:27 PM
Thanks for your very informative response.

As an alpha-user who is in VoIP as an avocation rather than vocation, I must thank you for allowing me to participate in the VOIPo adventure. It has been a most interesting experience to watch how a "new startup" progresses from an idea to a full blown product -- and a marketing strategy.

Tim, not only have you and your team been responsive to your alpha-users' comments, requests, concerns, and critiques -- but you have given us a fascinating inside look at the process itself ... most delightful. Thanks!

VOIPoTim
01-11-2008, 07:53 PM
Well, I think at the end of the day, it really just boils down to the fact that we're all people. There have been some good days and bad days, but it's all part of the process.

It's easy to hide behind things especially since we're service-based and not retail or anything where we have to have customers face-to-face. It's easy to put nice PR spins on things, hide debt when you're privately held, etc.

It's very easy to brush things off because let's be honest, what's the worst thing that can happen to a lot of companies short-term for ignoring things? Maybe some chargebacks? A gradual loss in revenue? Short-term nothing really happens. At the end of the day though, that's just like quicksand though and ultimately, the business will fail long-term.

I guarantee that we'll have our share of problems, outages, and issues. While I think we've pretty much always had a working dialtone with almost no actual service outages in BETA, you guys have seen some internal turmoil with staffing, etc. No matter what, all companies have problems and we're not immune. HostGator is not either.

I've got a "friend" Alex who provides support sometimes and makes status names under a fake name because it's not "proper" for the owner of a company to be involved with that portion of a business. It would look bad....

I'll admit I used to agree with that to an extent, but you should question it looking bad by who's rules... Once people just make the decision to move forward and do what they feel is the right thing and what would create the best possible outcome rather than worrying about things like that, that's where things really start to happen.

What's really so bad with people being genuine and involved? That's something I wonder about every day when I deal with a lot of companies. No, we can't be involved with everyone

My biz partner and I have more passive income coming in monthly than 90% of Americans make in a year (his from HostGator/investments, mine from online marketing and investments), but we're entrepreneurs at heart. We like to build, create and grow. We also don't like to lose. At the same time though, we're both very involved with what we do. If we were doing this just for the money, it'd be a little different. Yes, we intend to cash out long-term, but it's definitely not our motivation. For him it's HostGator...for me its VOIPo.

We're both building to be building...if we built something offering poor service, it's not going to meet our own expectations and really just kind of deflates the satisfaction in general and we let ourselves down.

Again, that's not to say that we won't have problems...because we will. I'm just saying it's all perspective and different people deal with those problems differently. In generally, I think most people in life try to do the best they can within their belief systems, perspective on morality and abilities.

That's what we try to do, and at the very least we're living up to our expectations and being true to what we want to do. It's not always going to the generally accepted path, but if compromise it, what do we really have going?


Thanks for your very informative response.

As an alpha-user who is in VoIP as an avocation rather than vocation, I must thank you for allowing me to participate in the VOIPo adventure. It has been a most interesting experience to watch how a "new startup" progresses from an idea to a full blown product -- and a marketing strategy.

Tim, not only have you and your team been responsive to your alpha-users' comments, requests, concerns, and critiques -- but you have given us a fascinating inside look at the process itself ... most delightful. Thanks!

fisamo
01-11-2008, 08:49 PM
As long as all your problems aren't users' ISP related and upstream-provider related, you'll be OK in the end. ;)

Sorry, it's been a long week, and sometimes I need to vent, too.

Now on the serious side. I also appreciate the journey--at the very least, it's been nice to have a few free DIDs and channels to play with on my own * system. But it's also been good to help build a service from the ground up with the ability to provide feedback from a user's perspective very early in the process.

I'm really hoping for some good, low-cost options (for low use, at least in the near term--seems like Express will meet the need) with the option to build up/add services as I see fit. I don't know as if I'd take on a VOIPo line as primary at this time--there are a few options that I would like to have that you haven't developed yet (phone-based control panel--ability to program/activate/deactivate CFWD over a phone, for example), and you'd have to prove yourselves in a production environment before I'd put the WAF at risk...

NY Tel Guy
01-11-2008, 08:52 PM
As long as all your problems aren't users' ISP related and upstream-provider related, you'll be OK in the end. ;)

Sorry, it's been a long week, and sometimes I need to vent, too.

Now on the serious side. I also appreciate the journey--at the very least, it's been nice to have a few free DIDs and channels to play with on my own * system. But it's also been good to help build a service from the ground up with the ability to provide feedback from a user's perspective very early in the process.

I'm really hoping for some good, low-cost options (for low use, at least in the near term--seems like Express will meet the need) with the option to build up/add services as I see fit. I don't know as if I'd take on a VOIPo line as primary at this time--there are a few options that I would like to have that you haven't developed yet (phone-based control panel--ability to program/activate/deactivate CFWD over a phone, for example), and you'd have to prove yourselves in a production environment before I'd put the WAF at risk...Sniff.....all of this mutual admiration stuff is making me cry....

VOIPoTim
01-11-2008, 09:01 PM
As long as all your problems aren't users' ISP related and upstream-provider related, you'll be OK in the end. ;)



Why not? I already have my Comcast thread going. It's an easy excuse :)

NY Tel Guy
01-13-2008, 10:56 AM
Mirrored from the HostGator Forum:

We’re pleased to announce that VOIPo will be launching on February 1st with a trio of services as outlined below. The full line of services including Residential VoIP Service and Hosted PBX Business services will be phased in shortly after the initial launch.

Tim,
Any idea on what the residential pricing might be for those of us testers who might fall into the category of the "light user"?
I really want to get my number away from VT before "Sunrocket II takes place, it is coming soon to a theater near you.....

gatorrobin
01-13-2008, 04:39 PM
So this is kinda like a business plan?

The 500 mins/month for a virtual number is going to be a hard sell when every other VOIP service that I'm aware of includes unlimited minutes on the virtual number beside the monthly charge for the number itself.

VOIPoTim
01-13-2008, 05:49 PM
So this is kinda like a business plan?

The 500 mins/month for a virtual number is going to be a hard sell when every other VOIP service that I'm aware of includes unlimited minutes on the virtual number beside the monthly charge for the number itself.

Remember this is also forwarding out to a PSTN number, not a straight up VoIP DID. Everyone else charges per min for that.

usa2k
01-13-2008, 11:24 PM
I've yet to see a virtual Windsor Ontario number from any provider.

Any virtual Canadian numbers in your future?

VOIPoTim
01-13-2008, 11:47 PM
I've yet to see a virtual Windsor Ontario number from any provider.

Any virtual Canadian numbers in your future?

Yes, but not solid ETA. We intend to launch a full service Canadian offering across the board, but need to get a few things squared away to make sure we're good regulatory wise there. I don't forsee any issues with that as it's almost all just paperwork, but the plan is basically to finish up the US launch and then add that to the mix.

Brian
01-14-2008, 05:42 PM
Tim, with the fun fee increase from VT, I wanted to re-visit the question of fees being included with the monthly cost, and your thoughts on the "regulatory" fees a lot of the carriers charge. What are VOIPo's plans on this?

VOIPoTim
01-14-2008, 10:27 PM
Tim, with the fun fee increase from VT, I wanted to re-visit the question of fees being included with the monthly cost, and your thoughts on the "regulatory" fees a lot of the carriers charge. What are VOIPo's plans on this?

I'm working on a post with residential pricing and the way we're going to be handling some things like this, how our billing system works, etc.

We are basically working around the clock planning and coordinating resources in light of current events. Updates on that to come as well.

usa2k
01-15-2008, 07:39 AM
The kids are being mean to Brenden
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19800154-ViaTalk-Fee-Increase-Notification (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19800154-ViaTalk-Fee-Increase-Notification)

Such as: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19801970-

NY Tel Guy
01-15-2008, 07:46 AM
The kids are being mean to Brenden
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19800154-ViaTalk-Fee-Increase-Notification (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19800154-ViaTalk-Fee-Increase-Notification)

Such as: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19801970-And quite funny at that.

Nate425
01-15-2008, 09:52 AM
It seems like people don't really care about the amount of money that it was increased, but rather how they did it. I'd bet you'd be pretty well off if you didn't get in to the "Unfees" business like that and just told people how it was.

And I even posted that I didn't care what VT did, but that was because I'm dumb and didn't pay attention to how they were doing it. When my contract is up with them in June, I'll probably be looking this way assuming everything still looks good then.

NY Tel Guy
01-15-2008, 10:06 AM
It seems like people don't really care about the amount of money that it was increased, but rather how they did it. I'd bet you'd be pretty well off if you didn't get in to the "Unfees" business like that and just told people how it was.

And I even posted that I didn't care what VT did, but that was because I'm dumb and didn't pay attention to how they were doing it. When my contract is up with them in June, I'll probably be looking this way assuming everything still looks good then.Exactly - I hate being nickel and dimed. Tell me up front with reasonable assurance what it is going to cost and I'll be fine with it. That coupled with the "seat of the pants, we don't need no stinkin documentation" mentality makes me lose all faith in that company's ability to survive and in their overall business integrity.

dswartz
01-15-2008, 10:28 AM
Agreed on all counts.

fisamo
01-15-2008, 12:50 PM
Exactly - I hate being nickel and dimed. Tell me up front with reasonable assurance what it is going to cost and I'll be fine with it. That coupled with the "seat of the pants, we don't need no stinkin documentation" mentality makes me lose all faith in that company's ability to survive and in their overall business integrity.

I guess I'm too late to 'second' those comments, but I agree completely. Whether the goings on of late have been actions in bad faith, desperation moves to keep the lights on, a combination of the two, or something completely different, there's no sense of self-accountability there. Also, as mentioned on DSLR, the timing couldn't be worse...

Brian
01-17-2008, 06:40 PM
Tim, how are we coming with the residential pricing post?

VOIPoTim
01-17-2008, 10:01 PM
Tim, how are we coming with the residential pricing post?

Well there's definitely a tradeoff in terms of marketing vs how pricing is structured. I'm trying to see if I can find some middle ground. The problem is that our costs to comply with various new initiatives that the government may be require are not factored into pricing if they don't exist today. So it's hard to "include" all of them without being able to tell what's going to happen in the future.

To qualify this, one thing I do not support is changing pricing to accommodate for required changes for customers who are in a prepaid term. I think that's a risk we as a service provider take on if we choose to accept a prepayment. I also feel that if we accept prepayment, we should accept it all at once so there are not additional charges until the term renews unless there are international calls or other usage based services. This is how our billing system has been designed to handle things already.

I have seen a lot of posts with people looking for bottom line pricing though and am trying to find some middle ground.

Any ideas?

usa2k
01-18-2008, 07:13 AM
... I'm trying to see if I can find some middle ground. ...

I have seen a lot of posts with people looking for bottom line pricing though and am trying to find some middle ground.

Any ideas?
The acid test may be what DSLR says.
They are tough on you guys! Thus, I understand hesitation.

Right here and now we are your test group.
(I see this thread is in the beta area - not alpha)
Somewhere on this site we can be a sounding board.
(Hopefully people can comment here and not leak unpublished info!)

Your safe, all-you-can-eat -price is $25 (Packet8/Vonage)
$20 plus fees is competitive (Packet8 stayed there a loooooooong time when new.)

I can remember when Vonage was $40. But the Bells were higher too.
Two lines at $25 plus fees (same adapter) would be a great deal

You are in the best position to say what is right.

I would hold off public number filtering until it is polished.
Hopefully voicemail is rock solid with message indicators or that will get you heat.
Outgoing CID/CNAM will be a must for reputation.
CID/CNAM and Phone Book to CNAM will be something to earn praise.

Forward to sip as we've seen will also be praise worthy
(Vonage dropped FreeWorldDialup to Vonage calling for fear of fraud.)

Prepay is a double edged sword for penny pincers gamble and cry loud when they don't get all they imagined. I am not a prepay person. You may want to hold off.

Disconnect fees are a double edged sword so you may want to charge for the adapter and let them keep it. If you do this too cheaply, then you will see people getting the adapter and leaving for other pastures. Especially the rebate near nothing type marketing.

Money-back trial period is never long enough. 60 days is better than the 30 or 15 days that have been marketed. 500 minutes was another restriction that seems fair. Within 60 days but over 500 minutes should only require the difference at a set per minute rate, so people can get a good test drive (make it $0.039 per minute for over 500.)

I fear the admin concerning adapters for Money-back returns.

jmczeal
01-19-2008, 05:12 PM
As regards to the reselling......
Is there a system or strategy in place to integrate with billing solution software to the point where available numbers will automatically be updated as necessary, and everything will work in sync (such as autopilot and whm)?

And on a side note, can you guys develop a voice menu to retrieve voicemail through phone, and send a signal for voicemail indicator (on phones with that feature)?

gbh2o
01-19-2008, 05:58 PM
Well there's definitely a tradeoff in terms of marketing vs how pricing is structured. I'm trying to see if I can find some middle ground. The problem is that our costs to comply with various new initiatives that the government may be require are not factored into pricing if they don't exist today. So it's hard to "include" all of them without being able to tell what's going to happen in the future.

To qualify this, one thing I do not support is changing pricing to accommodate for required changes for customers who are in a prepaid term. I think that's a risk we as a service provider take on if we choose to accept a prepayment. I also feel that if we accept prepayment, we should accept it all at once so there are not additional charges until the term renews unless there are international calls or other usage based services. This is how our billing system has been designed to handle things already.

I have seen a lot of posts with people looking for bottom line pricing though and am trying to find some middle ground.

Any ideas?

I think there are two issues here Tim. First is the issue of 'real' government mandated fees and taxes. Although the public moans and groans, I believe they generally understand that you must pass through any _new_ ones that are meant to be user paid. Second is the elusive "compliance fees" which are quite obviously what I call "oops and gouge" fees; oops, we screwed up in our cost calculations and planning phase and need to charge more to balance the books, or the let's see how much we can tighten the thumb screws on our customers with fees that only add to our bottom line without showing an actual price hike.

The first is the reality of government largess and the politicians need to grab every penny they can to keep the ship from sinking... we pretty much understand that to be beyond your control. The second issue is the one that gets caught between the public's teeth and _really_ irritates the hell out of them because they just can't get it out... the dreaded 'unfees'. Don't go there, just offer price plans that are fair to the customer and that reflect the actual cost you need to charge to do business without the 'unfees'. If you need to raise prices based on sound business practices, then do so when contracts end, monthly, quarterly, semiannually or annually as the case may be. Give fair notice, and no after the fact rate hikes.

The issue of prepayment is simply one of having a contract for services. Unless the contract allows for surcharges for things such as fluctuating fuel costs, then the contract should stand as it is written. If I enter a contract for 10000 gallons of #1 diesel at $x.xx/gal I expect to receive exactly that, regardless of any market fluctuations.

RockyBB
01-21-2008, 08:28 PM
Any ideas?

It's so difficult being me, but as you asked I feel obligated to provide you with your pricing strategy. Too bad you've wasted so much time without consulting with me upfront.

First, you will not collect prepayments. You've stated in other messages that you're rolling in dough, so you don't need loans from your customers. Instead you will offer discounts for term commitments. No commitment, the price is $24.99/month. Commit for 1 year, get 10% off ... bill will be 90% of 24.99 = $22.49/month. Commit for 2 years, get 15% off ... bill will be 85% of 24.99 = $21.24/month. You will bill that every month. On each emailed invoice you will keep a running total of savings due to commitment. For the two year term example, the discount is 15% of 24.99 or $3.76. After 6 months, continuing the example, that running total adds up to $22.56. Your invoice will say "Congratulations! Your 2 year term plan so far has saved you $22.56. You earn a total of $90.24 when you complete the 18 months remaining in your plan." If someone cancels early, they pay you that savings back because they didn't earn the discount. The amount will be no surprise. Someone has problems early on, the penalty is relatively light. The longer someone stays, the tighter the handcuffs. At end of the term, discounts stop until customer recommits. Then the cycle starts again, but the 1 year renewals get their first month free; the 2 year renewals get their first two months free. Reward the loyal renewing customers. Of course, those free months populate the restarted cumulative savings amount! This monthly billing strategy also allows you to bill taxes as they get applied by jurisdictions and not have to eat them if some states start to require them. I never liked "bottom line pricing" because if Ernie's state charges tax and my state does not charge tax, you'll be using my money to pay Ernie's taxes. I'll agree that you should try to avoid the "surcharges" that are not passed through -- that will give you a true marketing differential against just about every other VOIP competitor...add on only "honest" taxes.

For market segmentation purposes, you might consider a "Titanium Plan" at the $24.99 price point, which includes 5,000 minutes of calling, with extra minutes at 4¢. Also a "Platinum Plan" at the $20.99 price point with 2,500 minutes of calling, with extra minutes at 3¢ each, and a "Gold Plan" at the $14.99 price point with 500 minutes of calling, with extra minutes at 3¢ each. Term discounts apply to the fixed plan charge, not to the usage charges. By staying out of the "unlimited" game, you'll be avoiding the 3rd World Dictionary Police (otherwise known as home based telemarketers and phone rooms) and scaring off the heavy users who you don't want anyway, and you'll have a compelling reason for subscribers to enroll their "friends and family" because VOIPO to VOIPO will not count against their allowance (like Verizon Wireless IN-NETWORK)! For heavy international users, offer a $5 monthly fee in return for a 5% discount on your international rates. Send all your Directory Assistance traffic to 1-800-YELLOW PAGES and advertise no extra charge for directory assistance calls.

I mentioned to your Brandon on a long phone call a bit ago that you should not be offering adapters that are not routers. Especially if you are going mass market, you don't want to ship out a PAP2 only to surprise grandma that she has to now buy a router -- talk about a "gotcha." I like the way that Vonage does it -- asking customers to identify what their network looks like and shipping the proper device. I don't know if you have the scale to offer multiple devices; if not, ship the combo unit only. As time goes on you'll have the need to replace defective adapters -- I like the idea of having returned units (after appropriate cleaning) be sent out as replacements -- so you'll need a steady supply of those, which you'll get by having a charge for canceling service and keeping the adapters.

This ain't pricing, but if you've made it this far I'll squeeze it in... For as long as I've been in telecom I've always been a one man cheerleading squad for call branding. After your customer dials a phone number, they should hear some appropriate electronic swoosh sound with a whispered "voipo" ... which will create some attachment to the brand (imagine the interest among resellers with their own branding!), while eating up post dial delay time. This should also be done for incoming calls to tollfree numbers that your customers sign up for. Of course, the control panel should have some hidden toggle on/off option to assuage the screamers.

NY Tel Guy
01-21-2008, 09:34 PM
It's so difficult being me, but as you asked I feel obligated to provide you with your pricing strategy........ Of course, the control panel should have some hidden toggle on/off option to assuage the screamers.
Ahhhh, whadda you know.:p

jmczeal
01-22-2008, 01:09 AM
I mentioned to your Brandon on a long phone call a bit ago that you should not be offering adapters that are not routers. Especially if you are going mass market, you don't want to ship out a PAP2 only to surprise grandma that she has to now buy a router -- talk about a "gotcha." I like the way that Vonage does it -- asking customers to identify what their network looks like and shipping the proper device. I don't know if you have the scale to offer multiple devices; if not, ship the combo unit only. As time goes on you'll have the need to replace defective adapters -- I like the idea of having returned units (after appropriate cleaning) be sent out as replacements -- so you'll need a steady supply of those, which you'll get by having a charge for canceling service and keeping the adapters.

You know what, I never really thought of that, but this is true. I guess I didn't notice since I already had dsl router I could connect to. But, you do have to come to that fact that there are multiple phones in different locations in one house. So, hooking each one up to an adapter, and keeping them connected to internet could be a challenge. I personally use a Linksys Voip Wifi Adapter Bridge (forgot the model number). If you have cordless telephones, wouldn't be a problem. But, if you want the whole house connected, how can that be arranged?

I tried the suggestion somewhere on the forum where you can connect the adapter to the phone line directly, and the whole house will use voipo. However, that test was unsuccessful.

Brian
01-22-2008, 04:24 AM
For market segmentation purposes, you might consider a "Titanium Plan" at the $24.99 price point, which includes 5,000 minutes of calling, with extra minutes at 4¢. Also a "Platinum Plan" at the $20.99 price point with 2,500 minutes of calling, with extra minutes at 3¢ each, and a "Gold Plan" at the $14.99 price point with 500 minutes of calling, with extra minutes at 3¢ each. Term discounts apply to the fixed plan charge, not to the usage charges. By staying out of the "unlimited" game, you'll be avoiding the 3rd World Dictionary Police (otherwise known as home based telemarketers and phone rooms) and scaring off the heavy users who you don't want anyway, and you'll have a compelling reason for subscribers to enroll their "friends and family" because VOIPO to VOIPO will not count against their allowance (like Verizon Wireless IN-NETWORK)! For heavy international users, offer a $5 monthly fee in return for a 5% discount on your international rates. Send all your Directory Assistance traffic to 1-800-YELLOW PAGES and advertise no extra charge for directory assistance calls.


Rocky,

Although I think your concept here is great, the only problem is public perception. It's the reason all the cell companies offer "unlimited" texting, cable companies offer "unlimited" internet access, and other voip companies offer "unlimited" calling. Even though you can offer a 5,000 minute plan (and if you had an unlimited plan, it would be soft capped somewhere around here anyway), Joe User is going to look at that say say "Gee, Vonage gives me unlimited calls, VOIPo only gives me 5,000 minutes" - without thinking about what 5,000 minutes really means. So, as far as marketing, I think you'd be at a major disadvantage here, although realistically everyone would be a whole lot better.

dswartz
01-22-2008, 07:22 AM
Rocky made some good points, although I disagree with the "don't give ATA that is not a router". How many people nowadays don't have broadband already? If they do, they already *have* a router! I have seen more bugs and confusion involved with someone trying to get a voip "router" working in an already existing broadband setup (does the voip "router" go in front of the existing one? behind it? how do you keep the real router from intefering with the voip one?) I think this is completely backwards!

gbh2o
01-22-2008, 07:27 AM
Rocky,

Although I think your concept here is great, the only problem is public perception. It's the reason all the cell companies offer "unlimited" texting, cable companies offer "unlimited" internet access, and other voip companies offer "unlimited" calling. Even though you can offer a 5,000 minute plan (and if you had an unlimited plan, it would be soft capped somewhere around here anyway), Joe User is going to look at that say say "Gee, Vonage gives me unlimited calls, VOIPo only gives me 5,000 minutes" - without thinking about what 5,000 minutes really means. So, as far as marketing, I think you'd be at a major disadvantage here, although realistically everyone would be a whole lot better.

I think that RockyBB is presenting a great idea of keeping VOIPo above the game of lies. Perhaps an advertising campaign that would compare VOIPos 'generous' offerings with the hidden/true caps buried in competitors TOS or determined through customer or news reports. VoSPs seem slow to recognize that the market has been putting a fair amount of pressure on the cellular, cable and satellite industries to 'clarify' their terms and modify draconian terms... although AT&T seems a bit slow to do anything but add a bit of foggy fluff. Then there are those few, but growing, number of state AGs that are dragging service providers to court to get 'truth-in-marketing' for their citizens. The 'professor' at a chalk board [do those things still exist] of flip charts comparing competitors 'real' numbers to educate the public might work.

Of course, all those plans and price points would depend on whether inbound minutes are charged against that pool of minutes. I don't think they can realistically charge for them separately in the residential 'plan-type' market. So, I would think that the proposed pools are probably unrealistic for outbound-only at those 'platinum' and 'titanium' levels. Of course, I don't have access to the massive wholesale market and associated costs, so I can't speak authoritatively on what US/Canadian retail per-minute rate might be profitable! And I don't know the general usage patterns for average families, etc. MY 'impression' is that 1500 minutes outbound is an _average_ use for the smaller family, but that a teenager or two blow that number away quickly, with their use unfortunately primarily higher cost intrastate, when it can be tracked.

I would say that overage charges should only be high enough to encourage moving to a higher tier if appropriate based on consistent usage. A _reasonable_ overage rate for the occasional spike probably would be a feel-good point with your customers. They shouldn't live in fear of it; stuff happens!


Oh well, I can only guess what makes people happy, and what makes for reasonable profit without good information/data on which to base my suggestions. ;-)

RockyBB
01-22-2008, 09:57 AM
Relative to routers: at the SR collapse a buddy's mom (literally a little old lady) who was in trouble asked for my help and I suggested ViaTalk. She got a PAP2. She had no router. The SR gizmo had a pass through port so she didn't need a router. I had to give her my prized SMC 4-port router (which I was saving for the Smithsonian) just to keep her from being disappointed in her son's friend. (I now shy away from residential VOIP as I don't have any more spare routers.) If VOIPO is going mass market, they must anticipate mass market which is the non-sophisticated consumer. Avoid the flood of calls to customer service, the resulting flood of immediate cancellations and ship a combo unit.

Relative to market segmentation ... given VOIPO's relaxed pace for launch, I wouldn't think that immediate gratification would be so necessary. Instead do a little marketing spin and emphasize the familiar IN-NETWORK concept, which has worked wonders for Verizon Wireless and MCI Friends and Family. Why be satisfied with only one sale to a family, when you can make two sales to a distributed family with the purpose of all calls between the households are free! No one has attacked the parents at home, kids away from home market!

I developed the following thought a little bit afterwards, recognizing that there will be some private branding going on. VOIPO could develop the "V-Plan" concept. V-Plan would be the way to get all private label and direct customers to be able to call each other on-net without using allowance minutes. V-Plan would simply be all the phone numbers running on the VOIPO platform under all the marketing names. "Are you in the V-Plan?" Each of the resellers would participate in the V-Plan Alliance. There would be a website where one could key in the 10 digit number and the site would say yes or no if the number is in the V-Plan that day. Maybe a cross-marketing agreement with Verizon Wireless (starts with V) so that calls with V-Plan phone numbers don't use cell or VOIP minutes. This might set up nicely for VOIPO to takeover the Voicewing deal from deltathree, and/or if Tim should want to go to the paywindow one day.

dswartz
01-22-2008, 10:23 AM
Not to be argumentative, but I find personal experiences less than compelling reasons. I could counter with the (literally) dozens of threads I've seen on dslreports and other forums where someone was unable to get a voip "router" working properly with their existing network (for reasons I already mentioned.) Maybe we just need to agree to disagree here...

RockyBB
01-22-2008, 11:03 AM
we're all functions of our own experiences. your experience is no less important than mine. which is why I did say that Vonage does it best by offering a choice of adapters based on end-user's existing network. the point, as we're trying to help VOIPO in return for the free service, is to identify areas in which they can provide a more satisfactory experience than other providers. my point is there are unsophisticated users with a single PC plugged into a broadband modem. your point is that there are sophisticated users who already have a broadband router. both points are equally valid -- there's no argument from me. We have told VOIPO, our job is done. Now they get to decide what they want to do.

dswartz
01-22-2008, 11:51 AM
true enough. having a choice of which way to connect would be nice...

usa2k
01-22-2008, 07:07 PM
Great points Rocky!

More thoughts . . .

When I signed up with Vonage years ago, I got their Cisco ATA 186, and the $40 Netgear RP614 four port router. A sign-up that asks if a router is needed and selling them one is a perfectly good approach IMHO.

I prefer adapters a-la-cart adapters. (No router)

I am not fond of transparent ips like the Mediatrix Adapter. I just used it on a network or a direct IP (My ISP offers 3 Dynamic IPs.)


In terms of a $25/5000 minute plan, that is the best controversy free answer to be had. I would call it the Unlimited-lie-beater Plan, or the No Soft Caps calling Plan. Provide a web page option to exceed at the plan minute-rate, or stop all non E911 outgoing.

Only grief comes from addressing abuse on an "Unlimited" plan.

If VOIPo would allow a pooled 5000 minutes offering a second line, even better.Don't give lesser plans pooled minutes. Make 2-lines a Premium incentive.

Discount 1-8xx, FAX, and virtual numbers on the premium too.


The commitment/discount with savings owed for early termination is a good concept. I think a pre-pay every 3 months save 5% option would be worth thinking about too. Allow it to combine with Term Commitment.

ANOTHER THOUGHT: Vonage kills all functionality the day you cancel, even if you just paid your month yesterday. What will VOIPo do?

ANOTHER THOUGHT: Vonage counts 3 way calls as double minutes on limited plans. What say VOIPo?

ANOTHER THOUGHT: Vonage used to want the adapter back, and many felt their rules were twisty. They did not have a disconnect fee originally, but charged $40 until the adapter was returned in good shape. Even then, many claimed Vonage lost their adapter. That would be a nightmare with their current size!

===============================================
ANOTHER THOUGHT: Make forward to SIP not use minutes.
ANOTHER THOUGHT: Make forward to CELL use minutes.
ANOTHER THOUGHT: Make forward to PSTN use minutes.
Make those billing rules clear.
===============================================

gbh2o
01-24-2008, 05:42 PM
Do you have a select announcement prepared for the DSL Reports forum? It would be a nice update on project status!

Brian
01-30-2008, 08:11 PM
Still on target for launch Friday?

VOIPoTim
01-31-2008, 05:10 AM
Still on target for launch Friday?

I'm going to delay the launch one more time until the first week of March for a little more cleanup just to be 100% we're ready to go.

It's been 18 months...what's 1 more? :)