Today's New York Times has an interesting story on the impact VoIP services have had on the traditional phone companies. Basically, VoIP services like Vonage and Packet8 are beginning to force the big phone companies to rethink their service offerings and, most importantly, bring their prices down.
As the story says, it'll be a while before the VoIP companies will have phone companies cowering in fear, but they are offering more services to keep their customers instead of seeing them walk away without a fight. The arrogance of the big phone companies is beginning to wear off, and true competition will emerge for voice services and eventually the consumer will win out.
Of course, if you think you're going to get all of these services for next to nothing, you would be wrong. However, if things keep progressing as they are now, you should be able to get more for your money, which is not a bad goal to have.
1. The prices from The Big Phone Companies may not get as low as VoIP but at least people will have a choice instead of being stuck with whatever The Big Phone Companies want to give you.I had been waiting for years to get CW/CID.Never got it in my area.Signed up with VoIP and had it from day 1.I have 2 VoIP providers with more features and its still cheaper than what I was paying for 1 Landline
Posted at 11:05AM on Aug 2nd 2006 by RiDdLeR