Andy Abramson picked up on an excellent story on Slate that provides a comprehensive looking at VOIP service providers. It looks at most of the major players - Skype, VoiceWing, Packet8, Vonage, CallVantage - and grades them on sound quality, reliability, international calling, portability and bells and whistles. AT&T's CallVantage was the winner while BroadVoice trailed the pack by a wide margin. Perhaps an enterprising telephony reporter can do the same thing for service providers in Canada.

Now that I've escaped the Nortel AGM, I've had a chance to take a look at Rogers' cable telephony plans. They may be financially disciplined but they're underwhelming. Aside from the fact none of them include LD, there are no Web-based features such as voice-mail to e-mail, call me/follow me, and online account management. If you want LD, it costs 8 cents a minute in Canada, which is premium pricing, which is higher than what Rogers' Sprint Canada unit charges. Rogers' new plans are just regular local phone service provided by a cableco, rather than Bell. Nevertheless, UBS Securities expects Rogers will have 30,000 customers by the end of 2005 and 286,000 by the end of next year.
So how will Bell respond? It could be aggressive and highlight the fact there is little difference between its service and what's being offered by Rogers. Bell could also do nothing, and let Rogers win some market share as part of a plan to convince the CRTC to deregulate the local market. And/or Bell could roll out its own VOIP service with the standard bells and whistles. I suspect Rogers will probably win over customers who already have other services as part of a bundle. Then, there will be the Bell-haters, who may already by Sprint customers.
Let the wars start - albeit one that does not involve a price war...yet.

Voxilla, which offers Internet telephony equipment and industry news, has decided to open for business north of the border - in Vancouver to be exact. Voxilla Canada's new online store is selling everything from IP phones and wireless gear to headsets and VOIP adaptors- and doing it in Canadian dollars with free shipping. “We realized that there are a lot of people in Canada who are interested in the products Voxilla retails as well as the support services we offer," said Paul Crick, Voxilla Canada's president. "While they previously were willing to pay a premium in shipping for them we felt that there was a better way to service them." Given Rogers Communications just launched its cable telephony service, Voxilla's timing couldn't have been better.