Source: voipcentral.org

A couple of months back I wrote an article on how VoIP is helping building communities.

It is rather too obvious now that VoIP is fast becoming the major tool for building communities. News just filtering in says that MyVillage.com, the online community listings firm has selected Voice Commerce to provide its users with an integrated Internet telephony service.

The deal will give users and advertisers in 97 local communities in London and 24 other major UK cities and towns access to a VoIP service.

Voice Commerces Whitephone technology will take MyVillage.coms existing content to provide a fully branded, VoIP-enabled service that will offer free calls to PCs, traditional landline phonecalls and voice plus video messaging to what it calls passport members.

Nick Ogden, President, Voice Commerce Group, and founder of WorldPay, said:

Imagine being able to log in to your local community portal, view a restaurant that youd like to go to, talk to a friend through your PC about their experiences of it and then call the establishment direct to book a table, the exact location of which you can see in front of you. And do all this in a matter of minutes and completely free of charge.

We had been saying that all along, isnt it? *wink*
I promise that I shall discuss more on VoIP building communities soon, very soon.

News

Source: voipcentral.org

I have been reading this article with some interest by M Giordano where he says;

Broadband providers, particularly those with limited resources, such as hotels and airports are growing fond of this new revolution of broadband regulation.

It cited an IBA report on Jeff Pulver who wasnt able to make use VoIP over the hotels broadband connection where he was staying although he could connect his home cable box and transfer TV feed from home to hotel in August last year.
The hotel in question Le Meridien was then accused of attempting to cause difficulty for VoIP users to evade in-room phone charges by the IBA news article.
He further writes that broadband providers are blocking calls over IP or any kind of data transfer is akin to what is going on between the traditional phone line providers and VoIP operators where each side wants to make more money damaging the other saying;

The situation which has resulted in the old AT&Ts and Verizons of the brick-and-mortar world seeing themselves held up against the Googles and Skypes of the internet

He also writes;

It seems VoIPs dependance on broadband providers could be its one major downfall, something which could slow the VoIP adoption as more and more businesses see ways to save money, or earn more, by blocking access to internet telephony.

I would like to know, if VoIP moves away from dependency over broadband providers, and set up own internet services, how can it cut the cost to long distance telephony? The charm of VoIP lies in the fact that it provides dirt cheap calls and in my opinion, the VoIP companies are not out there to make money through calls but to make money indirectly from the communities they are trying to build on their networks or capture from the market and bring it onto their fold.

Lastly, as for deliberately blocking VoIP calls; if Le Meridien did this, it was rather a cheap ploy to earn a few pennies more on calls. What is this? If they wanted to make more money from phone calls, they can easily hike the rates of the rooms they are renting out to guests by a few dollars more? I for one wouldnt mind paying 5-10 dollars extra on my already high room bills in a fancy hotel like Le Meridien for a full range of service including making IP based calls!

I would like to hear more on this from VoIP enthusiasts and watchers.

Source: voipcentral.org

Two days ago we covered an interesting article on Miss Kandice Melonakos starting her own branded VoIP Service, KanTalk! Our favorite blogger Tom Keating covered it a bit harshly though.

Interestingly Tom found another press release about a website leveraging VoIP to build an online community with voice and video capabilities.

Christmas is the time people make home videos, send Christmas cards and call loved ones on the phone. Now they can do it free through a new family-oriented VoIP and video software called SweetTalk from Gingerbread TV. “The SweetTalk VoicePod is our gift to the families around the world,” says Christine Marie, also known as Mrs. Gingerbread. “And it’s just in time for the holidays.”

These show the arrival of Voice 2.0, and by the signs of it, this is going to make a huge impact in our daily life. Just imagine the few possibilities:

1. Music artists fans can hear the music on their VoicePods, can call the artists, send text messages, leave voice or even a video mails!
2. Communities of housewives and moms interacting with each over these VoIP clients, giving tips to build recipes, taking care of houses, babies etc like never before.
3. Young people from all over the globe can form hubs to discuss anything with more rich interactive experience.

Imagination is the only key. This is far more than what has been possible until now. All I want to say is this a great tool in hands of people to bring them closer at a fraction of cost. These VoIP services are not in competition with Skype, or Vonage, but are building parallel personalized services and communities catering niche clients.