Mark Evans

Telco Hell

Is the GizmoProject's “All Calls Free” program the beginning of the end for telecom carriers and the telecom industry. According to Andy Abramson, Gizmo Project users will be able to make free, unlimited calls to 60 countries around the world. Andy, who has come out of his blogging hiatus with a bang, said “All Calls Free” demonstrates “the cost of calls has really dropped to nothing”, and he wonders if other VoIP service providers will jump on the bandwagon. This is a savvy PR move by Gizmo Project, which is battling to establish a foothood against rivals such as Skype. The idea of free calls will no doubt appeal to the bleeding and leading edge who have no concerns about using software and computers rather than traditional telephones. For the mainstream, the Gizmo Project is probably difficult to grasp. That said, telecom executives can't be happy with the idea of consumers not paying anything to make a phone call. It's bad enough their high-profit, local phone business is under siege from Vonage, et al, and that the long-distance business has gone from lucrative to nothing in less than a decade. Faced with all kinds of financial pressure and increased competition, the carriers are becoming desperate, which explains why they are so adamant about getting rid of net neutrality so they can start charging fees for traffic travelling on their high-speed networks.
Insight: GigaOm offers some good perspective, particularly the idea that nothing is really free and that consumers will still pay to call certain countries and other premium services. Om also mentions how Vonage might be affected. Also check out Alec Saunders.