New Wireless Carrier Bypasses Networks, provides unlimited VoIP over Wireless

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2342994,00.asp

by mdasen • 17 years ago

13 8 17 years ago

Brushfire• 17 years ago

This is interesting. However, having been intimately acquainted with the mobile world, I'm a little skeptical.

1 - month-to-month with no contracts or credit checks. This is the very same thing that caused the death of many of the MVNO's. Unfortunately, a lot of the people who really care about 'credit checks' are the very same people who dont tend to pay their bills. Collections costs money.

2 - There is no mention of SMS. Personally, I use SMS more than voice. SMS routing is a little trickier, and there are carrier interconnect agreements that they might be using, but I'm curious as to the cost structure. Also, its unlikely that, if they do have SMS, that it will be able to work on commercial SMS services anytime soon.

3 - I use VOIP for my business telephone lines. Even when you turn the call quality down to cell-phone-quality, things can still get choppy or jittery. This is over business grade DSL. I can only imagine the call quality and drops using any of the wireless carriers data networks.

4 - Lock-In / Trust. People are hesitant to switch to new carriers becuase of contract lock in, but also trust. I might switch from Verizon to AT&T or back (but never sprint, they are horrible). But will I switch to a noname provider? No. AT&T rollover is, for all intensive purposes, just like having unlimited.

I do really think the mobile VPN bypass is neat, but I'm not entirely sold their business can work in the long run. Good luck to them.

barrkel• 17 years ago

The proof will be in the pudding. Latency and packet loss are murderous for most VoIP stuff I've used.

nickh• 17 years ago

I'm skeptical about the audio quality, because even small amounts of packet loss and latency can wreck havoc on VoIP calls.

However, even if Zer01's service doesn't live up to its claims, it's a step in the right direction. North America needs more companies striving towards this type of service.

chiffonade2• 17 years ago

> "We've developed specific algorithms in our technology that address latency issues across the GSM networks," Piilani said.

Apparently they're doing time travel in software now.

lutorm• 17 years ago

This latency is clearly not a time-of-flight issue.

chiffonade2• 17 years ago

It never is, unless you're sending data to satellites in orbit. If they lease the network access, how exactly are they fixing the latency issues on hardware and software they do not control?

mdasen• 17 years ago

I think it's interesting that they're offering an international plan for only $10 more that offers free calling from 40 countries. That seems like the biggest win. The current situation with international roaming is ridiculous.

latortuga• 17 years ago

When I hopped to their website and saw a little flash animation that said "Truly Unlimited Data" I couldn't help but smile. I'm hopeful for this company solely because I want a bona-fide choice in carriers that actually makes a difference. Perhaps they'll introduce competition into a market that is severely lacking it.

New Wireless Carrier Bypasses Networks, provides unlimited VoIP over Wireless

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