why is everybody not using voip?

shaq

hi i am a university student carrying out research for my dissertation. I would really appreciate some help from you guys.

My project is on VoIP services in the UK. VoIP is making calls over the internet to anywhere in the world at much cheaper rates and line rental than say BT or someone.

My research is on why the UK public is not responding to VoIP services as well as the people in the USA are, there are an estimated 10million voip users in USA and growing but UK theres nowhere as near.

There are 2 main companies in the UK, Vonage and Your Choice VoIP who are amongst the best in terms of calling plans although (your choice voip rates are cheaper) and i am with them myself and even though i thought it would be bad qualiy as thats what i associate with calls over the internet, it was infact crystal clear line and i could not tell its over the internet.

Even though VoIP offers much better features than your traditional landlines such as call waiting and call forwarding and on hold capabilities. and most of these services are free but still UK people are not taking it up aswell.

Could this be because UK people need educating more on what VoIP is and how it works or they just dont want to change from their normal providers?

some information would be extremely helpful!

far

Personally speaking I find VoIP dearer than normal landlines. Let me give you a few examples here - our typical calling pattern involves a lot of calls to Kenya and currently using a landline indirect access operator I can get these as cheaply as 3p/min. Using VoIP the cheapest I have found is 5p/min and so this for me is simply about cost. Likewise calls to 01/02 landlines cost me no more than 5p no matter how long the call using Call18185 however whilst some VoIP services can undercut this and offer free calls, the credit needs topping up every 3 months or so.

I do use a VoIP service (SiPGate) but purely for incoming calls so its a free way of gettin a second line. I have a router (Speedtouch 780) that allows me to connect a landline phone to it and receive/make calls using VoIP but I only ever take incoming calls via SIPGate. All outoging calls go out via BT using the cheapest service (Call18185 or the relevant indirect access operator). I know all about the free extra services but again unless you're making calls via VoIP they're not that useful. The only ones I really use are CLID and voicemail to help me screen callers.


Hope this was some help

darwin-rover

Virgin Media are losing a lot of telephone customers (down 70k last Q), and at the same time gaining a lot of broadband customers (up 51k last Q , number 1 ISP in the UK) , and apparently ths is because of the growth of VOIP . With VM you dont need a landline for internet .

Stuart_W

Your research may need to look at the way some of the bigger broadband providers - such as TalkTalk are actually including bundled calls from the landline - so with inclusive national and international calls from your exisiting phoneline, there is little incentive for the residential user to have to get to grips with more technology.
Also, with the right phone company, international calls are exceptionally cheap anyway - see the international calls checker from this site.
ADSL requiring a landline and the reluctance to change a phone number are other factors to consider in your research.

gt94sss2

1. There are many more than the two VoIP providers you mention - have a look at uk.telecom.voip including offerings from BT, not to mention things like Skype, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger etc.

2. VoIP is not always cheaper than using normal landlines, especally if you use callthroughs or indirect access numbers or the bundling of national/international calls by telephony providers.

3. Most people in the UK need a BT landline to have ADSL/broadband - which you really need to use VoIP properly - so will need to pay line rental anyway.

You might want to look into the availability of 'naked DSL' in the UK compared to other countries (like America)

4. VoIP suppliers are not as reliable as landline networks - just this week Skype was down for 2 days.

5. You may also want to mention BT's 21CN network - which will effectively make all UK calls over its network VoIP - over an private network not the public internet. Hence most people will soon be using VoIP even if they don't know it.

6. You may well find that many people know about VoIP but most just can't be bothered.. though business take up is increasing..

Regards
Sunil

normanmark

Simple reason is that its not cost effective nor reliable enough to compete with normal telephones

tomstickland

I looked into it about a year ago. Because I pay line rental VOIP offered me virtually nothing over just going for a cheap call provider, since I needed the line for broadband anyway.

Graham1

2 more reasons to add to those already given:

1. To save money using VOIP it is necessary to seek out the companies offering value and avoid the those most often mentioned in the media (Vonage and Skype etc.) Most people are completely unaware of the existence of those other companies.

2. Most ordinary people would not want the hassle of setting up a telephone/VOIP adapter themselves - and those companies offering pre-configured adapters are, of course, the more expensive providers.

BexTech

I've been VoIP only for 2.5 years and has only cost me a few pound in all that time other than the small cost for the ATA.

I recently had a landline back (new install from cable) simply because the offer cable gave me, you could say they through in the phone line with evening and weekend calls for free on top of reduced priced TV, I already had their broadband, they didn't want to lose me, so gave me a deal, if it wasn't for the deal, I'd still be VoIP only.

PBA

Remember that the US phone system is charged differently to ours. Local calls are free, but then calls within the state and long distance are each handled separately meaning that one customer can have three separate providers for their landline calls. Using the landline for local and then using VoIP for other calls simplifies things a bit as well as reducing costs. In the UK we (generally) only use one company for all calls, so adding VoIP would make things more complicated. There also seems to be more advertising for VoIP in the US - I bought a laptop in the States last week and it came with Skype preinstalled, as well as leaflets about it.

Remember as well that VoIP is doing rather well in the UK with businesses. This makes sense as many businesses need to have better data lines going in to their offices than ADSL, and given that they have data lines there's no need for them to have separate phone lines. Our company now has Cisco IP phones on all our desks rather than BT phones, and I'm noticing them more and more in different offices and shops. As a personal customer, to get a data line without a phone line in the UK you need to use Virgin Media as your ISP. I think many people prefer having the BT line as then they get a choice of ISP.

It would be interesting to see how penetration of VoIP compares between people who have a landline and those who don't, but have high speed internet (such as cable customers or students in halls of residence). I'd imagine that many students use VoIP, and that there many be word of mouth attached to that (ie their parents or friends at home may use it to speak to them for free, rather than call their mobiles). Also might be interesting to see how penetration differs between personal and business customers, if that's within the scope of your diss.

Badger_Lady

I use Skype to talk to my Dad in France, but NEVER buy credit for it - only use it for the free calls. One thing my Dad has also done is set up a UK landline phone number that diverts to his Skype phone so that I can call him for free on my mobile.

Is this VOIP??? Maybe I do need educating...

But my Skype often overheats my PC's processor and the computer shuts down on me mid-conversation, or one of us gets a "user is not available" message even though we're both hovering by our phones... I wouldn't rely on it 100%.