Hosted VoIP

Kingpin VoIP service provider Skype (News - Alert) and top dog chipmaker Intel Corporation have jointly launched a marketing campaign aimed at making the personal computer “a central and reliable platform for voice and video calling over the Internet.”

Basically, the two companies are urging all PC owners in the U.S. and Canada to discover the joys of VoIP this coming Mother’s Day by offering a day of free global calling over Skype.

The goal is to prove to consumers that making phone calls on your PC is just as easy as picking up the phone – oh, and to bolster subscriptions to Skype’s Unlimited Calling plan, which allows customers in the U.S. and Canada to make long distance calls for dirt cheap. Dubbed the “Gift of Gab,” the promotion represents the first time that U.S. and Canadian citizens will be able to make free SkypeOut calls to anywhere in the world for a period of 24 hours.

It’s a clever campaign – but as we all know, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink it. Study after study shows that consumers don’t think of the PC as a way to make phone calls – after all, it’s kind of hard to carry your PC (or laptop) from room to room while talking, the same as you can with a cordless phone - and wireless headsets just aren’t catching on either. Furthermore, one cannot discount that a fairly large segment of the population still suffers from that stubborn ailment known as “technophobia.” Good luck getting them to dial out on their PCs.

Still, though, we managed to mostly wipe out polio and Smallpox, didn’t we? And so now Intel (News - Alert) and Skype will try to inoculate the population against this scourge by dangling a carrot - and perhaps also by imparting a little common sense - i.e. that making VoIP calls from your PC is just as easy as using a handset. In fact, maybe they can convince everyone that using Skype on the PC is actually easier than purchasing and installing an Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA) or loading Skype’s software onto an IP phone (arguable, I know)!

To make everyone feel like they’ll be left in the dust if they don’t change their calling habits, a press release promoting the promotion today bandies about some statistics from market research firm In-Stat (News - Alert) showing that the number of households in the U.S. using VoIP has now reached 10.6 million – this following brisk growth in the fourth quarter. (But what about the first quarter? Could it be that all those headlines about Verizon’s patent infringement case against Vonage (News - Alert) have actually stimulated additional interest in VoIP? Particularly proprietary VoIP that bypasses the PSTN?)

“In-Stat found that while cable providers drove strong adoption of VoIP, Skype gained significant market share in the quarter, consolidating its leading market position at the expense of its client-based VoIP rivals,” the press release states. “The report credits Skype’s innovative and disruptive pricing and product strategy for its success, citing the Skype Unlimited Calling plan for allowing registered users to make unlimited SkypeOut calls to any phone number in the U.S. and Canada for a flat, annual subscription fee of just $29.95, almost 90 percent less than traditional calling plans that can cost consumers $24.95 per month or more.”

So there you have it: Skype is innovative because you have to fire up your PC and don a headset – whereas cable VoIP might as well be plain old telephone service, because you use a regular handset. Who knew?

Still though, one can’t argue with the genius of this marketing. Setting aside my sarcasm here - downloading Skype really is fast and easy – and putting on the headset really isn’t all that big of a chore. It could just be that 24 hours of free calling - on a day when practically everyone makes at least one long distance call - is a move that will pay off for both companies.

Furthermore, when it comes to VoIP, building awareness is still a big part of the game. In this case, even if Pavlov’s dogs don’t come a-running, you can be sure that many of them heard the bell.

For more information about the “Gift of Gab” visit www.skype.com/go/giftofgab.

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Patrick Barnard is Assignment Editor for TMCnet and a columnist covering the telecom industry. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.

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