It is a conventional wisdom that VoIP will disrupt (if not already) PSTN. The marquee player usually quoted is Skype because of the low cost. Now comes the news (via Stuart Henshall) that “The Skype phone rate is about 50% higher in Sweden then the regular phone.” (Message posted by kento on Sep 20, 2004 8:52 AM).
By the way, did you know that there are people who used Skype for a while but then stopped using it? Horrors, really. 22 million downloads, 700,000 simultaneous users, 1.5 million minutes used, … Time to add additional statistic? Anyways, they are trying to find out why.
Posted by aswath at September 21, 2004 01:37 PM
Hi Aswath,
Thanks for the trackback. I like discovering new blogs and being brought back to those I'm less familiar with.
Do I detect a degree of sarcasm? I was a little taken aback when I saw the Kento comment you referred to. For the most part SkypeOut rates will always be higher than local call rates, however the access cost of the line is seldom factored into these equations. I think my basic bill is $15 per month. At 2 cents per minute I'd have to do 750 minutes of local calls per month to "save" money (this in an area where local calls are free).
Thanks for the insights on the Lure of Virtual Numbers.
Posted by: Stuart at September 21, 2004 05:59 PM