New technologies are creating new opportunities for some marketers and threatening the billing base of others. My phone bills must be best sellers by now, judging how many calls I get from telemarketers wanting to review them and save me money. Offers are coming thick and fast via telephone, fax and email lately.
Voice over IP (VoIP) is an emerging technology which uses the internet to place phone calls at dramatically reduced prices. There are associated costs in the volume of data transmitted over your broadband internet access, but VoIP has the potential to dramatically alter the way we make phone calls and what we pay for them. Larger businesses have been adopting VoIP for a year or so now and generally report good results. VoIP is edging its way towards commercial viability for smaller business and traditional carriers seem to be responding by seeking contracts that lock consumers into their existing channels.
Wireless broadband is also a hot topic at the moment, with at least three technologies being marketed by different providers. While wireless broadband is still at least twice the price of fixed line services such as ADSL, they are sure to drop with volume adoption and more maturity in the technology. Coverage is variable depending on the network but if you are a mobile worker and need internet access, these are well worth investigating. Wireless services will also shake up the traditional telephony carriers’ market.
The telecommunications market for both phone and internet appears to be very volatile at the moment with many broadband providers offering various deals. For deal comparison and just keeping an eye on what is happening in the market, Whirlpool is a good place to start. Whirlpool shows a huge range of pricing plans for broadband in Australia. whirlpool.net.au is a fully independent community website devoted to keeping the public informed about the state of broadband in Australia and shows a very good compassion database of broadband plans on offer.
A free service from www.skype.com is also worth a look if you make a lot of long distance calls to a few numbers. Skype is a free internet voice chat service. Once downloaded and installed by both parties, and armed with a sound card and a headset and microphone, it works very much like MSN instant messenger - except you don’t have to type. There is no charge for calls from one Skype user to another anywhere in the world and for a fee, Skype allows you to make calls to the public telephone network in most countries at dramatically reduced prices. Voice quality is variable but over a broadband connection, I have found it to be at least a good as a normal mobile phone call.
With so much variation and volatility in the market and some powerful new technologies ‘coming soon’, business may be well advised to avoid contracts that lock them into any particular deal or price for an extended period as it seems likely that prices will probably continue to fall and deals will be plentiful.
Telecommunications is probably one area where a business cannot afford to be loyal to any brand but should rather ‘cherry pick’ the offerings on a short term basis to grab whatever savings are on offer. Just how often to change providers depends on how much time you want to devote to comparing offers and how many times you can hear "Your call is important to us…. Press 1 for…."