With Rogers finally entering the telephone market, I thought it would be a good time to offer a snapshot of pricing details for the major VOIP service providers. I'll start by using Bell Canada's traditional local telephone service as a pricing benchmark:
- Bell charges $20 to $28 a month for basic local service. For call-answer, call-display and call-waiting, the total cost rises to $41 to $49, not including LD. A six-feature package is $24.95.
Cablecos (prices vary depending on bundle discounts)
- Rogers: $29.95 (one feature) to $41.95 (six features); 15% discount if you have other Rogers services
- Shaw: $55 a month (multi-features, unlimited North American LD)
- Cogeco: $39.99 to $44.99 a month (multi-features; unlimited North American LD)
- Videotron: $22.95 to $28.95 (multi-features, no LD); $2.95 for 100 minutes of North American LD
Others
- Vonage: $34.99 (multi-features and province-wide LD); $39.99 (multi-features, North American LD)
- Primus: $19.95 (multi-features, no LD); $29.95 (multi-features; unlimited North American LD)
- AOL Canada: $19.95 (multi-features, 60 minutes of LD); $39.95 (multi-features, 1000 minutes North American LD)
- Bell Digital Voice: $45 (multi-features, unlimited North American LD); $38 (multi-features, Can. LD 5¢ /minute, U.S. LD 7¢ );
- BabyTel: $29.95 (multi-features, unlimited North American LD)
- Sprint Canada: $19.95 ($4 for the first calling feature, $2 for each additonal calling feature; no LD)
- SpectraVoice: $14.95 to $39.95 (premium plans includes unlimited North American LD)
So what's the best deal in Canada for VOIP? Probably Primus' TalkBroadBand plan at $29.95 a month given it's feature-rich and you can purchase other services from Primus such as high-speed Internet access. A step up in the mobile VOIP market is Vonage at $34.99 to $39.99 a month. As far as the cablecos, Videotron is stll far and away the pricing leader as it aggressively drives to take market share from Bell in Quebec. The other cablecos have made life much easier for ILEC rivals with prices that analysts call "disciplined" and I'd describe as pragmatic or conservative.
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Mark Evansthe blog - examines the world of telecom and technology from a distinctly Canadian perspective.the person - lives in Toronto, CA with his wife and three children, and works as director of community with PlanetEye Inc. 
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Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Mark Evans
on Tue 05 Jul 2005 07:16 AM EDT | Permanent Link
Comments
Re: Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Anonymous
on Tue 05 Jul 2005 08:28 AM EDT | Permanent Link
I'm going anti-Bell just as soon as I settle into my house. The reason I'm leaving is service. Bell doesn't provide any. My phone was down last month for several days. After being on hold for hours, I was told they couldn't send a technician for several days. So, let's say I take Vonage or Primus, can I expect better? Anybody tracking service with these VOIP providers?
-Randy Charles Morin http://www.kbcafe.com Re: Re: Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Anonymous
on Thu 12 Jan 2006 10:18 AM EST | Permanent Link
I made the switch to Vonage in October of '05, with the intent of not putting a physical phone line into the new home I was moving to mid December. While the Vonage service is adequate, and some would say good value, I do frequently have a crackling issue on my outbound calls.
I've also been waiting since October for them to transfer my old phone number from my old telco (Sprint/Rogers Telecom). This transfer is supposed to take 20 business days (about a month). To this point (January 12, 2006), it has not been tranferred, and what's worse, I'm unable to cancel the service that's associated with this service. I sold my prevous place, and the new occupants have my phone number still running. I've put blocks on the line to prevent use of toll services. Vonage has given me a due date of January 13th for the number transfer, and if they don't meet this date, I'm moving over to Rogers internet phone service, in the hope that it will be a smoother transition. Caveat Emptor. Shaun Re: Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Anonymous
on Tue 05 Jul 2005 09:44 AM EDT | Permanent Link
From a price standpoint, Primus does have some appeal, but you must consider other things before you determine which service gives you the most bang for your buck.
Reliability is one factor that should be considered heavily, as is flexibility. Opting for a cable voice offering should fill the reliability requirement, but what about flexibility or even portability for that matter? Being able to take your phone with you is desirable, not being locked into a 1 to 2 year contract is great as well. Maybe I'm a happy Sympatico customer and want to keep them as my ISP. Vonage ranks high, Primus a distant second. Re: Re: Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Anonymous
on Tue 05 Jul 2005 01:39 PM EDT | Permanent Link
Reliability is one factor that should be considered heavily, as is flexibility.
Forget about VoIP. Think of the market as divided into two. Dedicated Phone (Bell, Cablecos) is more reliable, but more expensive -- it's got its own path to the rest of the world. But you can't take it with you. Internet Phone (Primus et al) is more flexible, and cheaper -- you're paying for the Internet anyway, and it uses it to get to the PSTN cloud. But the engineering feat has to be much more impressive for you to get the same reliability. Maybe I'm a happy Sympatico customer and want to keep them as my ISP. You can -- regardless of who you choose as a Phone provider. With Internet Phone, you'll be running it on top of your Internet-over-DSL. With Dedicated Phone, it uses a separate wire pair inside the house, and even (if you mix Rogers and Bell) a separate path out of the house. Just about the whole world has called this VoIP vs POTS/PATS/TDM telephony. I'm beginning to see that's the wrong way to think about it. Re: Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Anonymous
on Thu 07 Jul 2005 02:46 PM EDT | Permanent Link
How about Sprint's Internet Phone? (Not its Home Phone, which is being merged with the Rogers product.)
Re: Re: Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Mark Evans
on Thu 07 Jul 2005 04:57 PM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link
i've updated the blog. sprint is charging $19.95 a month for VOIP service; $4 for the first calling feature and $2 for each additional calling feature. If you want call-answer, call-forwarding and caller-ID, it would be cost $27.95 - but would not include any long-distance.
Re: Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Tim A
on Tue 12 Jul 2005 03:39 PM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link
You might want to add SpectraVoice to the VoIP mix here. I'm just testing out their service now.
Re: Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Mathieu Tourangeau
on Mon 22 Aug 2005 11:33 PM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link
So, do you have more information on what SpectraVoice has to offer. I'm already a Yak VoIP user and like it but my only other option (cause Primus is not an option: Too many complaint from more than one contact for this compagny.) is SpectraVoice. Price are competitive. For the same price has Yak worldCity, SpectraVoice offer unlimited incomming, unlimited Local and Regional call and 500 min of long distance call. This is really great but is the service reliable enough to switch from Yak to SpectraVoice? Yak offer the hability to test their systems for 14$. Nothing else! SpectraVoice is 40$ ... Much more juste to test their systems....
Tks a lot for all your comment. Mat. Re: Re: Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Tim A
on Tue 23 Aug 2005 12:01 AM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link
So far I'm pretty happy with SpectraVoice. My only complaint is the larger startup costs than the others like you say. I haven't found the service to be down at anytime since I started testing it. I do find that the voice is a bit choppy but only one way (mine going out). Likely it is due to the setup I have and possibly too low an upload speed from the broadband provider.
I would definitely recommend at least trying SpectraVoice out. Re: Re: Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Tim A
on Tue 23 Aug 2005 12:04 AM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link
So far I'm pretty happy with SpectraVoice. My only complaint is the larger startup costs than the others like you say. I haven't found the service to be down at anytime since I started testing it. I do find that the voice is a bit choppy but only one way (mine going out). Likely it is due to the setup I have and possibly too low an upload speed from the broadband provider.
I would definitely recommend at least trying SpectraVoice out. Re: Re: Re: Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Tim A
on Thu 12 Jan 2006 11:18 AM EST | Profile | Permanent Link
I've since switched from SpectraVoice to DigitalVoice as I was having very very poor service from SpectraVoice support.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Tim A
on Thu 12 Jan 2006 02:59 PM EST | Profile | Permanent Link
I should also mention that I'm currently only evaluating services that are not tied to a specific hardware device that is provided by the VoIP provider. I'm specifically looking to use my own hardware and/or softphone and Asterisk to connect to the VoIP provider. And of course also one that covers the 416 area.
There are tons in the US that work well but do not provide 416 numbers. And so far in Canada the only services I've found are SpectraVoice and DigitalVoice (I haven't looked recently). There are also a number of VoIP providers that work well with their equipment but that is of no interest to me. Re: Re: Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Anonymous
on Sat 28 Jan 2006 02:56 AM EST | Permanent Link
Spectravoice sucs. Call quality was ok in the begining. Then it became bad. I could hear the caller but callers were complaining. I was using Rogers Lite ( Not ultra lite). Then I calls started going to the voice mail without ringing. Customer service was the worst. They have moved their locations so many times. Could not locate their physical location. The web site is never updated.
Then the phone was not working and still they were deducting from my credit card.
Finally I canceled my service, But still did not get my REFUNDABLE DEPOSIT.
Worste thing is I still could not get my phone number which I had for ages.
I'm so pissed out.
Re: Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Mathieu Tourangeau
on Thu 12 Jan 2006 02:40 PM EST | Profile | Permanent Link
I'm currently using Yak WorldCity Voice Over IP and I'm pretty satified with it. It replace my extremely expensive Bell wired phone line since july 7 2005. Voice quality is Perfect. I got little problem in august when I can't ear the caller but the caller can ear me but this has been fix since. Customer support is very good. They also got french technical support which I like. There is only a montly fee to pay. No installation fee. No hardware fee. With a one year subscription, the hareware is free. You can test their system for about 15$ shipping of the hardware is included and you return it at the end. The only negative thing is that I could not keep my old phone number but that is the price you have to pay when you are pioneer on the technology. Every start services are include in my 18,99$ CAN / month like call waiting, 3 way conference, caller id, voice mail...
Mat. Re: Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Jake C
on Fri 14 Apr 2006 11:32 PM EDT | Permanent Link
try unitz.ca, they appear superb, and great prices, with great coverage!
Re: Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Pat
on Thu 22 Jun 2006 02:07 PM EDT | Permanent Link
AVOID SpectraVoice !!
so many problems.... http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,16348460 http://voip-info.org/tiki-index.php?page=SpectraVoice%20Communications Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Mathieu Tourangeau
on Thu 22 Jun 2006 03:03 PM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link
I almost try SpectraVoice. Tks for the comment.
Yak just cancel my package of 18$ by month for a 25$+2$(911) unlimitted month AND they also cancel my phone number! I really hated that. I'm currently using www.Babytel.ca which offer the best price, service quality is perfect and also tech support is really great. The only little problem with them now is that I don't know if I have a messge in my voicemail but I receive an email right away so it's not a big problem. I hope they will solve that in a near future but I'm very happy with them for now. The most important thing is the voice quality anyway. I finally got my phone number transfered after 47 DAYS!!! but now everything is back to normal. Yak gived me a 30 days notice but I had to wait 20-40 days (47 days in my case) to transfert my phone number. This is horrible. At least, I don't give my money to Bell since the last year :) Mat. Re: Re: Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Anonymous
on Sun 23 Jul 2006 06:33 PM EDT | Permanent Link
I've been using Unitz VoIP (unitz.ca) for over 2 years and I've never had a problem. Sound quality is excellent, faxing out works well (*99). I've never been left hanging from their CS department. Very fast service, very good service. I'm based in Toronto but have noted that they have many cities available in their offering.
Long distance covers Ontario and I beleive most of Quebec, if not all of it. Re: Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Anonymous
on Sun 18 Mar 2007 02:18 PM EDT | Permanent Link
I am a small business owner and I like the flexibility of VoIP but I want to be able to setup extensions for my partner and I and have an automated greeting so we should much bigger. We work in different locations so we both need to answer the phone and transfer calls to each other. I have been doing some reading on virtual pbx solutions for small business but I have not found many companies in Canada providing this service yet. Does anyone know of any companies offering this type of service?
I found one company called Easy Office Phone (http://www.easyofficephone.com) which provides this type of service, has anyone used this before? Re: Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Anonymous
on Sun 18 Mar 2007 02:19 PM EDT | Permanent Link
I am a small business owner and I like the flexibility of VoIP but I want to be able to setup extensions for my partner and I and have an automated greeting so we sound much bigger. We work in different locations so we both need to answer the phone and transfer calls to each other. I have been doing some reading on virtual pbx solutions for small business but I have not found many companies in Canada providing this service yet. Does anyone know of any companies offering this type of service?
I found one company called Easy Office Phone (http://www.easyofficephone.com) which provides this type of service, has anyone used this before? Re: Canada's VOIP Pricing Landscape
by
Bogdan
on Sat 16 Feb 2008 08:22 AM EST | Profile | Permanent Link
Companies providing VoIP service are commonly referred to as providers, and protocols which are used to carry voice signals over the IP network are commonly referred to as Voice over IP or VoIP protocols. narconon vista bay
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