Kieth has turned his analytical brain to the fallacy of mobile VoIP with the excellent post on now Truphone might be good a PR but they are not great at forming a business plan. As with my post yesterday about how the Dragon got it wrong Truphone does not compare like with like.
SKYPE no longer say that they are a VoIP play they say that they are a Messaging platform. Vonage have discovered that their business plan is flawed. Look at the number of me to services for VoIP that have closed the shop when it comes to consumer VoIP. Truphone should no better because of their history with Gosiptel.
The likes of Orange do not see VoIP as a threat, they look at the service and say at present it is not fit for purpose. They also like the fact that just such a service allows them to demonstrate where the value sits in the current customer proposition.
Before anyone moves toward a new service based on VoIP we first need to get the user based off prepaid and onto post paid. This is something that I just don't see happening too soon as it would result in the Networks having to reduce the current subscriber numbers to reflect the real numbers.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
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3 comments:
Thanks for the compliment about PR. However it's largely unwarranted in this case I'm afraid. The issue was flagged to Truphone by its customers, checked, and found to be true. Truphone had to address it immediately and, in this Web world, used its blog to do so. Word was out.
The Register, which was the first media title to run the story, came to Truphone of its own volition, and the comments to the article tell their own story. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/18/n95_crippled/
So this is not a PR stunt, it is a real issue affecting real people, and one that brings into question mobile net neutrality. Allow this, and where does it stop?
Tim,
Thanks for the clarity.
However I still say that the market for Mobile VoIP is less than 5% of the population.
What Kieth was saying in his blog is that just why would a network operator having given you a subsidy for a £600+ handset then not recover the cost.
Truphone customers are complaining that the service does not work. With a number of VoIP providers blocked by both fixed and mobile networks because they are not paying for access to the network it will always be so.
It's a view.
But I once read (in the context of embryology research legislation, as I recall) that in the whole history of mankind, legislation has never once halted progress. Indeed, if you can think of a case, let me know.
If we include, in a definition of 'legislation', rules imposed by one or more companies as well as rules imposed by Government, then the status quo you describe will inevitably change.
And, for all our amusements, may I also offer by way of distraction this, as a reminder how dangerous technological predictions are: http://moronland.net/moronia/moron/972/
Warm regards,
Tim.
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