VoIP is FREE

With Gizmo Project and Skype giving away domestic and internat'l calls, the already strained telcos are in a pickle. Mark Evans writes, "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." "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 writes, "What kind of a loss is acceptable to these companies? Though it is hard to get a straight answer, Jajah officials say they can make up all the losses in premium services such as scheduled conference calling, or other such services." So where is the money in VOIP? Jason Droege (CEO of SIPphone, the company behind Gizmo Project, and founder of Scour.Net) believes that there are many other ways to make money off usage here – pay-per-call ads, premium services, calling to non-covered countries, virtual numbers. [Om adds, "there are no free lunches in life, I suspect that many of the VoIP companies are finding that attracting users beyond the early adopter set is hard, and needs major marketing dollars."