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Home > Archive > Voice Over IP in UK > June 2005 > VoIP rate comparison
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VoIP rate comparison
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| Hi,
We have recently extended our phone rate comparison database to include
VoIP. So far we only have a small number of companies' rates: this will
grow with time.
I would be interested in comments, and in whether we are missing
people's favourite VoIP providers.
Joel
--
Joel Feinstein, Nottingham UK, http://www.ourfavouritecompanies.com
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| Ivor Jones 2005-06-06, 7:46 am |
| Joel wrote:
> Hi,
> We have recently extended our phone rate comparison database to
> include VoIP. So far we only have a small number of companies'
> rates: this will grow with time.
> I would be interested in comments, and in whether we are missing
> people's favourite VoIP providers.
> Joel
I notice that it quotes different rates (0.5p/min & 1.4p/min) for calls to
US landlines/mobiles. As there is no way of telling whether a US number is
a landline or a mobile, why the different rates..?
Ivor
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| Ivor Jones wrote:
> I notice that it quotes different rates (0.5p/min & 1.4p/min) for calls to
> US landlines/mobiles. As there is no way of telling whether a US number is
> a landline or a mobile, why the different rates..?
>
> Ivor
On this issue I prefer to quote the rate claimed by the companies. I
agree that it makes no sense that they claim the rates are different.
Joel
--
Joel Feinstein, Nottingham UK, http://www.ourfavouritecompanies.com
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| Peter Gradwell 2005-06-08, 7:45 am |
| Joel wrote:
> Hi,
> We have recently extended our phone rate comparison database to include
> VoIP. So far we only have a small number of companies' rates: this will
> grow with time.
> I would be interested in comments, and in whether we are missing
> people's favourite VoIP providers.
please include us! www.gradwell.com/voip/callcosts
thanks
peter
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| On Wed, 08 Jun 2005 12:14:45 +0100, Peter Gradwell
<peter@gradwell.com> wrote:
>Joel wrote:
>
>please include us! www.gradwell.com/voip/callcosts
Oh dear! From http://www.gradwell.com/voip/
"We offer complete UK wide coverage with phone numbers in every area
code, plus 0870, 0800 and 0845, so you can have a real 01 or 02 number
[...]
London - 0207"
Are you going to offer new 0203 numbers too? ;-)
--
Cheers,
Jason.
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet and in e-mail?
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| Peter wrote:
> please include us! www.gradwell.com/voip/callcosts
>
> thanks
> peter
Hi Peter,
Can you send me a file with rates in tab or comma delimited format?
Currently we are basing the comparison on the most expensive rate to
the country's landlines rather than the cheapest. Perhaps in the future
we will develop, in addition, a more detailed database based on more
digits of the phone number, but for the moment we are sticking to one
VoIP rate per country/country mobile. (So far the international VoIP
rates for the companies in our database are all 24/7.)
Joel
--
Joel Feinstein, Nottingham UK, http://www.ourfavouritecompanies.com
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| Peter Gradwell 2005-06-08, 5:45 pm |
| > Oh dear! From http://www.gradwell.com/voip/
>
> "We offer complete UK wide coverage with phone numbers in every area
> code, plus 0870, 0800 and 0845, so you can have a real 01 or 02 number
> [...]
> London - 0207"
>
> Are you going to offer new 0203 numbers too? ;-)
You have no idea how man people ring us up and go "can you do me 020
7..." if we don't put that. Sad, but true.
peter
--
peter gradwell. gradwell dot com Ltd. http://www.gradwell.com/
-- engineering & hosting services for email, web and voip --
-- http://www.peter.me.uk/ -- http://www.voip.org.uk/ --
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| Joel wrote:
> We have recently extended our phone rate comparison database to include
> VoIP. So far we only have a small number of companies' rates: this will
> grow with time.
There are a few of these now (you list one of your competitors on your
home page) and I must admit I've had a bash at this myself (*VERY* basic
POC - http://www.voipcost.org.uk/). The idea that I was toying with was
an Asterisk AGI script can query in real-time the best provider for an
international number (hence the POC web page). Some other sites have an
application that allows 'off-line' (non-PBX) lookups but I haven't seen
one that went as far as the AGI script.
I wonder where this takes the market if you can always use the cheapest
provider then everyone will end up charging the same (and every provider
probably losing money).
Matt.
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| Dave Gill 2005-06-08, 5:45 pm |
| Peter Gradwell <peter@gradwell.com> wrote:
> You have no idea how man people ring us up and go "can you do me 020
> 7..." if we don't put that. Sad, but true.
You could at least stick a space in there so that it's 020 7... ;-)
--
The From address is a spam-trap, so all replies to the newsgroup please.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Be Alert, Your Country Needs More Lerts! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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| Matt wrote:
> I wonder where this takes the market if you can always use the cheapest
> provider then everyone will end up charging the same (and every provider
> probably losing money).
> Matt.
This hasn't happened yet for ordinary phone rates, and our comparison
pages have been around for quite a while now. Indeed the Finarea group
compete with themselves under many names, and their rates (which are
many and various) can go up or down.
For phone calls using callthrough companies it is easy to chop and
change, with no need to sign up for an account. How easy is it to chop
and change using VoIP?
Joel
--
Joel Feinstein, Nottingham UK, http://www.ourfavouritecompanies.com
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| Ivor Jones 2005-06-08, 5:45 pm |
|
"Joel" <joel.feinstein@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1118267814.915566.132890@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Matt wrote:
> This hasn't happened yet for ordinary phone rates, and our comparison
> pages have been around for quite a while now. Indeed the Finarea group
> compete with themselves under many names, and their rates (which are
> many and various) can go up or down.
> For phone calls using callthrough companies it is easy to chop and
> change, with no need to sign up for an account. How easy is it to chop
> and change using VoIP?
There isn't really the need IMHO. If you're calling VoIP to VoIP it's
mostly free anyway, most suppliers have peering, although not all, but
it'll come. If calling the PSTN the rates from most are far lower than BT
or whoever and chopping/changing to save a few pence here and there isn't
worth the effort IMHO.
Ivor
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| Martin² 2005-06-08, 8:45 pm |
| Joel:
>How easy is it to chop and change using VoIP?
Dead easy with softphone like Xten Lite, you can have up to 10 VoIP
providers set up
and just use which ever is best for the destination, but it's a PITA to keep
up with all the
changes e.g. Finarea !
I presume it's also easy with Asterisk.
Regards,
Martin
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| Joel wrote:
> Matt wrote:
>
>
> This hasn't happened yet for ordinary phone rates, and our comparison
> pages have been around for quite a while now. Indeed the Finarea group
> compete with themselves under many names, and their rates (which are
> many and various) can go up or down.
> For phone calls using callthrough companies it is easy to chop and
> change, with no need to sign up for an account. How easy is it to chop
> and change using VoIP?
Point is that for traditional PSTN calls you had to look up the number
in advance to find the cheapest provider. That may be practical for an
individual who makes only a few calls but a SME may not be able or
willing to do this for each call.
Now what if your (VOIP) PBX could take the number, lookup the cheapest
rate on the fly and make a call using that provider? You would need a
reasonable number of providers (4 maybe?) but when with no set-up charge
this is not a problem - all you have to do is keep credit on all the
accounts.
That's why I asked the question about the price comparison sites
impacting provider profitability.
Matt.
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| B.M. Wright 2005-06-11, 8:45 pm |
| Matt <usenet@banana.org.uk> wrote:
> Joel wrote:
[vbcol=seagreen]
> Point is that for traditional PSTN calls you had to look up the number
> in advance to find the cheapest provider. That may be practical for an
> individual who makes only a few calls but a SME may not be able or
> willing to do this for each call.
> Now what if your (VOIP) PBX could take the number, lookup the cheapest
> rate on the fly and make a call using that provider? You would need a
> reasonable number of providers (4 maybe?) but when with no set-up charge
> this is not a problem - all you have to do is keep credit on all the
> accounts.
I already started a thread on voipuser.org about this a while
back. Basically, I wanted to know if SIP supported querying the cost of
the call before making it, you could do exactly as you said. Some other
person tried to argue that it would be "prohibitively expensive for the
provider to implement such a complicated system". I say, that's
rubbish, it's not so complicated when they already have database of
exactly how they charge. SIP would have to support a simple
conversation of "how much to call +xxxxxx?" with a reply from their end
after it did a simple database lookup. I doubt this database would be
very large by todays standards, so it would probably take a fraction of a
second to do the lookup and respond. He argued on about how the rates
are published, don't change much, blah blah blah, and I decided it
wasn't worth my time arguing the point so the thread died. Personally,
I think the rates are quite poorly published and this would be a good
safeguard against getting ripped off (i.e. the companies that lump ANY
UK number starting with 8, including 0800, into "mobile" rates)
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| Tony Hoyle 2005-06-11, 8:45 pm |
| B.M. Wright wrote:
> I already started a thread on voipuser.org about this a while
> back. Basically, I wanted to know if SIP supported querying the cost of
> the call before making it, you could do exactly as you said. Some other
It's a great idea.. I've always wondered why it wasn't done.
You just have someone who's effectively a call broker.. you post a
request 'I want to call X' and it tells you the top 5 cheapest
providers (or whatever, depending on the request). It's then up to you
to make your choice. This could be based on SIP, XML-RPC, whatever...
just as long as there's a client to get the information.
For a time I worked for a bandwidth broker that did the same kind of
thing with leased lines.. the customers liked them because they'd save
an average 30% (one saved 90%!!) and the telcos liked them because they
pushed business their way that they wouldn't have otherwise got.
Tony
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| Martin² 2005-06-12, 2:45 am |
| Voipbuster tells you the cost as soon as you dial, usually ZERO cents per
minute, but one time
it said 24 cents and I promptly disconnected (not sure what No I dialled ?).
However I made a test call to my mobile which I did not answer but was
charged 18cents :-(
>You just have someone who's effectively a call broker.. you post a
>request 'I want to call X' and it tells you the top 5 cheapest
>providers (
Niftylist.com does that for PSTN, perhaps they could do it for VoIP but of
course (at the moment) you can't easily use different VoIP provider for
every destination.
Regards,
Martin
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| Tony Hoyle 2005-06-14, 8:45 pm |
| Martin=B2 wrote:
> every destination.
Why not? I do...
I just have to update the list manually at the moment. An automatic
system would be much nicer.
Tony
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| Tony Hoyle 2005-06-14, 8:45 pm |
| Martin=B2 wrote:
> Niftylist.com does that for PSTN, perhaps they could do it for VoIP but of
No it doesn't, you misunderstand 
I'm not looking for a website thst lists prices. I'm talking about an
automatic brokering system that's tied into your PBX or (possibly) ATA
and tells it the cheapest route as you dial.
Tony
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| Tony Hoyle wrote:
> I'm not looking for a website thst lists prices. I'm talking about an
> automatic brokering system that's tied into your PBX or (possibly) ATA
> and tells it the cheapest route as you dial.
Did you see my first post in this thread?
Matt.
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