Mark Evans: VOIP Disconnect

Mark Evans writes in his  blog about the results of a new poll on VoIP.  The poll suggests that consumers are aware of VoIP, but they don't understand how it works and are primarily looking at VoIP services as a way of saving money versus as a platform for enabling new features.  This is primarily due to the way the service is being marketed, as a lower-cost replacement for the traditional telephone.

I agree with the results of this poll.  I've talked to several folks in the last few weeks who are signing up for VoIP services simply as a way to cut their long distance and local phone bills.  Mark argues that residential VoIP vendors need to market their services based on value added features, I disagree.  For the vast majority of people out there, a telephone is a utility.  They don't need or want features such as web-based call logs, selective call acceptance, multiple rings, etc., and selling a service based on those features will ultimately fail.  Instead, residential users have come to expect that calling is a commodity service that should be bought on price and price alone.  People are used to cheap and/or free calls on their cell phone and calling cards.  The only reason they want or need a home phone service is to have what is perceived to be a more permanent number, with better and more reliable quality, and as such they have an expectation that any home phone service, whether it be VoIP or traditional PSTN, will offer the same level of service. Therefore, they buy on price.

What I've found disturbing is that the folks I've talked with generally don't understand issues related to 911 service, the need for back-up power, the difficulty of connecting VoIP services into existing home wiring, or the lack of quality guarantees from VoIP service providers.  They also don't understand that some services don't support fax, and none of the services that I'm aware of support home alarm systems or devices like TiVo that need to call home for updates. 

I fear that there may be a large number of users who believe that a VoIP phone service is identical to their current phone since it is being sold as a PSTN replacement, and don't discover these shortcomings until they have ported their phone numbers and disconnected their existing residential service, which will cause a consumer backlash (and perhaps more lawsuits like what we're seeing with regard to 911 service and Vonage in Texas).