Be Prepared
The Age
Thursday August 14, 2008
Charles Wright looks at some options for cheap internet phone calls.
WE AT THE Bleeding Edge Centre for the Study of Computer-Induced Psychopathologies are particularly proud of our latest contribution to DSM-IV (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition).Only our intimate involvement with technology allowed us to identify Obsessive Boy Scout Syndrome: a condition that leads to an overwhelming desire to Be Prepared.While we did develop the condition ourselves - as frequently happens with our particular field of specialisation - fortuitously, our personal misfortune has allowed us to track the progress of the syndrome and identify the apparent cause.Our studies have proved conclusively that it is directly associated with internet telephony. The symptoms generally occur soon after the subject is introduced to VoIP (Voice over IP) services and realises just how much money might be saved - provided one has carefully deployed one's resources and has carefully studied the fine print. The victim generally begins with agonising deliberations over the choice of his VoIP carrier. Most people are happy with one. The sufferer, however, finds his throat tightening at the very idea of having only one VoIP service ... and possibly paying more than he needs to for particular calls or depriving himself of a particular advantage.VoIP providers may look similar, but the subtle differences can dramatically affect one's bottom line, as the director of the Bleeding Edge Centre for the Study of Computer-Induced Psychopathologies discovered when he set up VoIP services for his spouse's business.Initially he used the services of Melbourne-based Mytel (www.mytel.net.au). Mytel's call quality is excellent, but its call rates are significantly higher than some of its competitors. Its advantage, at the time, was the availability of a hosted PBX service, which essentially provided many of the benefits of having an in-house Asterisk open source PBX system without the cost and complexity. When it became obvious that the business would make substantial savings by having its own Asterisk server, however, Mytel was no longer an attractive proposition.Earlier, the director had been using MyNetFone as his personal and home office provider. On a Whirlpool Saver account, which is available to members of the free Whirlpool VoIP forum at whirlpool.net.au, MyNetFone is only slightly more expensive than the cheapest of its competitors, and while the web ordering process can at times be a touch Byzantine, its customer service is very good.Their web services were a significant attraction for a small business. If you advertise a VoIP phone number to clients, MyNetFone offers the ability to go online and divert incoming calls to another service if something goes wrong. If you're obsessed with Being Prepared, that sort of facility is extremely important.On the other hand, one also has to be prepared for the high cost of calls to mobile phones. Although most VoIP services offer substantially cheaper rates for calls to mobiles than the telcos, none can compare with the GoVoIP Aussie Pack offered by Queensland based GoTalk(gotalk.com.au). For $14.95 a month, users get 300 free local calls, 300 free national calls, and 100 free calls (up to 500 minutes) to Australian mobile phones.GoTalk accomplishes this by having a cheap interconnect fee with mobile carriers, which has largely arisen from the huge phone card business which is the company's principal activity. Its chief executive, Steve Picton, who spent nine years with British Telecom and was director of marketing at AAPT, has built a substantial business from the philosophy that the average caller has better things to do with his time than taking every available opportunity to make enough mobile calls to destroy the company's profit margin.That would have left only one area of unpreparedness in the director's VoIP strategy: calls to 13and 1300 numbers. There has been an increasing trend by companies to use these numbers, which are widely perceived as being the same cost as a local call. In fact, they're considerably more expensive.Pennytel, whose cheap call rates make it an obvious candidate for any well-prepared VoIP plan, as an example, charges 25c for each of those calls, compared to 8c for a local call on its untimed plan. GoTalk does not regard 13 and 1300 numbers as free local calls. The unprepared user will instead be paying 14c per minute.Last week, however, this gaping hole of unpreparedness was suddenly filled by Melbourne-based VoIP provider Freshtel (freshtel.net). If you sign up to their $9.95 monthly plan, and take the $5 per month National option, all calls to Australian landlines - including those 13 and 1300 numbers - up to a maximum of three hours per call and a total of 10,000 minutes per month, are free. That makes Freshtel an obvious choice for any small business that's worth its woggle.The great advantage of using an Asterisk server, or even, for home or small office users, an Analogue Telephone Adapter like the LinkSys SPA 3102 which we've written about earlier, is that one can have several VoIP servers, and shuffle them around using dial plans to direct specific numbers to each provider.That, of course, is only the first step in the well-prepared VoIP strategy. The next step involves choosing hardware like handsets and computers and uninterruptible power supplies.
© 2008 The Age
