Obivoice price changes.

[7Priest7]

$25 for a year of service is pretty sweet.
500 minutes is more than enough for me.

The real question, how is the QoS going to be come May when me and other GVoice users start signing up for alternate VoIP.
If the price is still $25 a year come may, I may use it.
Otherwise I plan to get a Bluetooth capable home phone and have it paired with my cell.

Are there hidden fees? I tried callcentric long ago before obihai existed and it was full of hidden fees. I would never give callcentric another try, ever!

Will obivoice even be around for a full year?

Companies nowadays always pushing pre-order and paying in advance, forcing the consumer to absorb all the risk if they fail.

[ceg3]

I do know there are no hidden fees.  The price you see is what you pay.  No taxes or fees are added.  I get a good feeling about the obivoice gang and as a former netTALK escapee and one time Magic Jack user I know first hand things can be pretty bad in the VOIP world.  I once used Lingo and it worked flawlessly for 2 years, but they do add taxes and fees and I eventually became frustrated with their slow price creep.  The fees and taxes eventually equaled  my little 9.95 a month plan.  I think it's unfortunate for obivoice their price increase coincided with OBi users' interest, because they are being somewhat harshly criticized for that.  I was assured the unlimited is truly unlimited, but they do monitor usage for excessive commercial use of consumer unlimited.

[KAura]

Personally, I like the $75 unlimited for 2 years...
not that I would use all of the minutes on the
lower plans, I just like not having to be nickel'd
& dime'd, so the plan gives peace of mind to me.

But I don't know HOW a company can have such
a big difference in rates between residential and
commercial when everything is voip!

This is total stupidity...  or greed...  or perhaps
ignorance on my part!  An internet packet is
an internet packet.

Without offering any added value, where is
the price difference justified. Simply because
businesses are used to paying it?

Perhaps ObiVoice (Intelafone) knows, but I sure don't.

[Alyson]

Something is telling me that this will be not the last sudden turn down the road. Not that I care, since I would not consider this for a second anyway.

+1. I was planning to use this OBiVoice service after 5-15-2014 but I don't think I like it anymore.

I am with you on that one.  I was also waiting until it was official that Google Voice would no longer work on my Obi 100 before making any changes. I am still waiting to hear what Google might be planning.

[simpleAnswers]

But I don't know HOW a company can have such
a big difference in rates between residential and
commercial when everything is voip!

Definitely the price difference in the business and residential is and should be a concern for anyone.
Having seen the ridiculous price differences and seen how they are now modifying their website.
I have to say, even I'm not sitting comfortably.

The residential plans now say limited time offer. Plus it says any cancellations will be treated as a month to month plan for refunds. Couple that with the fact that they have this huge price disparity on the residential to business plans, which makes no sense. It does bring its own questions.

I get the feeling that users could be asked to switch to business based on usage eventually. lol. Wouldn't that be interesting!

[intelafone]

But I don't know HOW a company can have such
a big difference in rates between residential and
commercial when everything is voip!

This is total stupidity...  or greed...  or perhaps
ignorance on my part!  An internet packet is
an internet packet.

Without offering any added value, where is
the price difference justified. Simply because
businesses are used to paying it?

Perhaps ObiVoice (Intelafone) knows, but I sure don't.

VoIP telecommunications does not work the same way as simply transmitting internet packets from place to place.

Telephone service providers still pay to connect calls between your VoIP account and other VoIP providers/POTS providers.

The reason for the difference in price is because someone using an account for business will use their service a lot more than someone using it as a residential landline. To cover costs for that customer their service charge would need to be greater than that of the average customer to avoid us having to raise rates across the board. None of our customers should have to pay to support the commercial usage of others.

I hope that addresses some of your concerns.

[QBZappy]

@intelafone

I'm getting goose bumps reading your replies, not for the content but for the fact that you bothered. Unfortunately for OBi fanboys, obihai themselves have taken the opposite approach (at least publicly on this forum). It's great that you guys are fielding questions here and on DSL. Back in 2011 it was not difficult to talk to obihai on this public forum. In my opinion, that is one of the reasons why a cult of OBi was developed. Although we never met them it felt like we had direct access on some level to the devs.

Keep the lines of communication flowing. It sends waves of good vibes to the community. Since the time that we were introduced to your services, I'm getting the sense that OBi users are slowly waking up and taking positions with alternatives to GV. In fact I think that because of this exposure some of your competitors are rattling the cage for some attention as well. The perception to me at the moment is that your public display of dealing with current and potential client issues promptly and in a transparent manner seems to be earning you some respect. Stay humble and prosper.

[intelafone]

That is much appreciated, Zappy.

We definitely want to keep the lines of communication open. The reason why our website, web portal, and offered features is expanding and changing so much recently has been the huge influx of good input from VoIP users in the New Year. Google Voice pulling it's XMPP support is definitely a double edged sword. On one hand a lot of advanced VoIP users lose the ability to make and receive calls for free. On the other it's really helped us to improve the way we do things at Obivoice as those experienced users seek alternatives.

If we can mold our service to what the community wants to see while still remaining sustainable, that is what we're going to go for.

Due to recent feedback, in fact, current projects involve expanding the functionality of outbound Caller ID Spoofing at the Call Detail Records available in your web portal.

[DWWomick]

I bought a two year plan for my mother. She loves it and she can keep using her Obi100.

[gthai]

I have signed up with Obivoice for 1 year unlimited talk Feb 17th 2014; I got an email informing me that my account will be suspended because I am making over 2 hrs. phone call per day. I think it is  misleading to tell people to sign up for unlimited plan and comes around to say you can not stay on the phone for too long. Just be careful.

[ceg3]

I have signed up with Obivoice for 1 year unlimited talk Feb 17th 2014; I got an email informing me that my account will be suspended because I am making over 2 hrs. phone call per day. I think it is  misleading to tell people to sign up for unlimited plan and comes around to say you can not stay on the phone for too long. Just be careful.

This sounds a little squirrelly. If you got such a message I am certain beyond doubt that if you contact Ryan or Andrew they will have an explanation. Unlimited consumer is indeed unlimited, but they do monitor accounts to see if anyone is abusing it (meaning obviously using the account for business purposes). I am certain you would have to go way beyond two hours a day to be in any way in violation.

[cluckercreek]

I agree, something is amiss with this. Obivoice is very responsive to any questions or inquirys.

[simpleAnswers]

I have signed up with Obivoice for 1 year unlimited talk Feb 17th 2014; I got an email informing me that my account will be suspended because I am making over 2 hrs. phone call per day. I think it is  misleading to tell people to sign up for unlimited plan and comes around to say you can not stay on the phone for too long. Just be careful.

LOL...I don't see any surprise with that. They clearly state that unlimited is unlimited with limitations, and that this is a residential plan. I posted about this before.

You can see their fair use policy https://intelafone.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1421644-fair-use-policy

Your use is categorized as a business user trying to abuse a residential plan. If you are racking up hours of calls daily, it is no longer residential usage category. Every plan I've seen that tout unlimited have fair use policies so there is nothing misleading about it. Regular cellphone and landline plans have had this for years, so I don't see what the surprise is that a voip service has it too.

[dircom]

I don't see where it specifies how many minutes is too much. 

[CLTGreg]

I don't see where it specifies how many minutes is too much. 

I can see if it's a lot of calls making up that two hours. That's more of a sign of being a business than residential. However, the non unlimited plan includes 2000 minutes. I would expect "unlimited" to be a measure beyond that and probably more than 1600 minutes more over a month.

The FTC needs to step in and put an end to the abuse of the word "unlimited". I blame Ring Central for this as they were the first ones I saw do it years ago.

[intelafone]

Hello,

The Fair Use Policy, as has been mentioned, is to protect against business usage of accounts that are optimized for residential usage. Unfortunately we have to flag some accounts that are exhibiting commercial usage of the service so that we do not have to raise the subscription rates of our entire customer base. We don't want once customers overpaying to cover the extreme usage of another.

The Fair Use Policy doesn't have any specific constraints because that would defeat the purpose of an Unlimited plan. What generally gets accounts flagged for business usage is a high daily average of about six hours a day and with relatively short average time on calls. If this remains consistent over a period of time(week days, usually) then it is apparent that the account is being used for commercial purposes.

It's never fun to impose restrictions on accounts and it won't be made a habit. The purpose of the Fair Use Polciy isn't to mislead our customers but instead to protect the majority of our customers from rising rates to cover someone else's costs.

[CLTGreg]

Does it matter if the calls are incoming or out? I'm just curious if termination fees play a role (I have no idea) and that's how some vendors are able to have free incoming calls.

I just checked my stats for Feb and it looks like almost 500 minutes and 79 calls.

[gderf]

A minute is a minute. It doesn't matter which direction, incoming or outgoing.

I am not aware of any termination fees.

[7Priest7]

Vestalink's Good deal will end this month?
Then they gonna be overpriced?

If you use 10 minutes of calling on the first day of service, they terminate your account for excessive usage, NO REFUND!

A start-up company with a vague acceptable use policy that allows them to "demote" accounts that are paid a year in advance, what could go wrong?

Save your money, Don't buy their not-so-unlimited.
In fact, save yourselves the stress, Don't trust a deal that seems too good to be true from a company nobody has heard of.

[gderf]

If you use 10 minutes of calling on the first day of service, they terminate your account for excessive usage, NO REFUND!

Where are you getting this from?