Obivoice price changes.
SteveInWA:
The only good thing about these companies that spring up like toadstools is that, if they fail or raise prices to a level you find unacceptable, you can leave without a contract issue.
I doubt this company's pricing model, even after the price increase, is sustainable long term. There is a level of fixed cost and reasonable profit margin involved that will eventually doom them, as it has others with a similar price.
There is a long discussion/debate on this over on DSLreports, and I tend to agree with the poster who took the effort to try to figure out a bare-bones cost model, and demonstrated that this is just too low to be sustainable, especially after they expand from the one guy answering the sales and support calls and emails, etc.
As always, everyone has their own tolerance for "you don't get what you don't pay for".
Koby:
Quote from: carl on January 26, 2014, 05:29:21 pm
I do not think so. Just the opposite. The free GV has been killing a lot of great small VOIP providers. You cannot compete with free.At the same time, there is enough competition among smaller VOIP providers. Getting rid off freebees is one thing. raising prices another. The small provider VOIP market is one of the last markets with truly free competition and performance pressure. I think that a disappearance of a market distorter like Google voice is a good thing for all of us.
I think you are getting a bit ahead of yourself here. The only thing that is happening on May 15 is that Google Voice is discontinuing XMPP connectivity. As far as we now know, Google Voice will still exist, and they will still be free (though that could change because they did not make their usual late December announcement this year). The only difference is that your Obihai device won't directly connect with Google Voice any longer. As far as we know now, there will still be ways to make and receive calls using Google Voice, they simply won't be quite as transparent and will involve additional equipment.
The other thing I think that it's wrong to assume is that Google Voice discontinuing XMPP connectivity will be a big boon for other VoIP companies. That could happen, but it's also just as likely that people will simply forget about trying to use landline phones and shift all their traffic to their cell phones. I think the idea of paying an annual fee for a VoIP line isn't anywhere near as attractive as free service, and some percentage of Google Voice users just aren't going to bite, even if Google Voice DOES go away completely someday.
Personally I am waiting to see what sort of plan Obihai has in the works, since they have said that this "Obivoice" is not the service they are planning to offer. I do not really have a good vibe about Obivoice, and them raising prices so soon out of the gate certainly didn't help. Maybe they aren't any better or worse than most of the other VoIP providers, but offering a plan for less than a month before jacking up their prices just doesn't seem like the right thing to do, especially since they didn't set any kind of expiration date for their initial price offering. I'm not real big on the "we have to charge extra so we can offer an affiliate program" excuse either - as a consumer, why should I have to pay more just so someone else can take a bite?
SteveInWA:
Good points, Koby.
With regard to the future direction of GV and the consumer land-line telephony marketplace, I've frequently written about this on the Google Voice forum. I get a lot of flack from the soreheads and whiners valued community members who don't have the business or legal background to understand the larger issues, and just want free phone service. Here's a recap:
Google, of course, hasn't and won't announce future plans; they're infamous for their silence. But, all indications are that the inbound call management and other original features of GV from the Grandcentral days will remain pretty much intact (they'll give you one phone number that, in turn, forwards to up to six of your phone numbers, etc.) The "free through the end of 201x" limited offer language was eliminated in 2013 when Hangouts phone calling was introduced. Now, future pricing can be understood as any business product or service: "It's free as long as we continue to offer it for free, and we reserve the right to change our pricing, or the offer itself, at any time." I do not see Google having any interest in being in the telephone services-for-a-fee business, as they really want to stay away from FCC regulations and the mandatory fees, surcharges and taxes that come with regulation.
Your point about users turning to mobile vs. VoIP is right on. Google is moving in the same direction. The "pure play" or independent VoIP marketplace is already saturated, with race-to-the bottom pricing and extremely low profit margins. It is a relatively small niche market at this point for consumers (although more robust for business users), for several reasons. Most residential consumers are either getting phone service as part of a 2-way or 3-way bundle with TV and/or internet service now, or they are abandoning it in favor of mobile phone use. There is no sensible business reason for Google to be in the land line VoIP telephone service provider marketplace.
As to whether or not Google's exit from XMPP support will have any effect on the pure play consumer/residential/SOHO VoIP marketplace, one could argue either way. A year from now, everybody will have forgotten about it; there will continue to be the come-and-go small providers, but the more stable providers will probably still be priced around where they were before and during GV times.
This year, we expect to see increasing migration and integration of Google Voice functions over to Hangouts, where users will continue to be able to make telephone calls (free to the US and Canada, low-rates elsewhere) on their laptop or desktop computer, on their iOS device, and soon, on their Android devices.
CLTGreg:
If picked up a 6 month lite plan to see where it flows. Low risk indeed. As long as they honor pricing as it was for those on a trial then that's OK with me if the service is good.
Only other thing I noted was billing increment is 60/60 where Anveo (and I assume others) is 30/6. So short calls to leave a message on an answering machine for instance could add up fast so be aware.
intelafone:
Hey everyone,
Thanks for your feedback. As always the input we receive is what allows our service to grow and change to suit our customers needs. The price increase on the Unlimited Plus plan was implemented for a few reasons.
Foremost, it allowed us to offer more subscription plans to our customers who knew they didn't need unlimited minutes as they simply didn't need to use their residential landline that much. We opened the ability for them to start plans that had 2000 free minutes included.
Also the higher price has allowed us to introduce an affiliate program that has been suggested by many of our customers. The affiliate program provides participants with a set of image banners and links that, when used to create an account and sign up with service, will earn the affiliate program participant 10% of the subscription cost for as long as that customer is with Obivoice service.
Thank you again for your thoughts and the discussion you have all prompted about VoIP services.
-Andrew
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