No Such Thing As Free Calls
Filed in archive Dangers by Dameon Welch-Abemathy on June 10, 2008
It's funny, we hear a lot about free calls on different services. While that's great for the end user, those free calls cost someone and companies are finally starting to realize that they can't keep giving the store away.
Two recent examples of this are MOBIVOX and Truphone, both of which recently discontinued their free calling. Truphone has always been clear their free calling within 40 countries has always been a promotional deal, whereas MOBIVOX is taking away free calling between MOBIVOX members-one of their big marketing messages, at least historically.
Even Skype's "free" calls cost some money-even if the calls never touch the PSTN. Maintenance of the Skype network itself does cost Skype some money, but the bulk of the cost-the data transport of the call itself-is spread out across the Internet. All of this serves to reduce the cost for Skype to provide the service, but make no mistake that a marginal cost is still there.
Two recent examples of this are MOBIVOX and Truphone, both of which recently discontinued their free calling. Truphone has always been clear their free calling within 40 countries has always been a promotional deal, whereas MOBIVOX is taking away free calling between MOBIVOX members-one of their big marketing messages, at least historically.
Even Skype's "free" calls cost some money-even if the calls never touch the PSTN. Maintenance of the Skype network itself does cost Skype some money, but the bulk of the cost-the data transport of the call itself-is spread out across the Internet. All of this serves to reduce the cost for Skype to provide the service, but make no mistake that a marginal cost is still there.
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