B. Mann Consulting

I'm sorry you had a bad experience with Primus. On the contrary, I've had good results. Considering this is a relatively new technology and they are offering it at competitive pricing (compared to POTS), I was expecting some glitches. Too long delay to transfer my existing line, 911 support not there initially, some dropped calls. Overall, worth the $ I saved and certainly better than FWD. VoIP is already used in most LD communications, but Bell keeps charging the same prices, unless forced down by competition.

Faxing, web interface, pager/email/sms notification are a must, in my opinion, but I was going after the other services for which Bell charges $7 INDIVIDUALLY - conferencing, CID, forwarding, call waiting, etc.

As with all new technologies (at least "newly introduced to consumers"), there will be problems but offer & demand will dictate who will fix them and in the end, how much they will charge. It's no secret this will mean lower prices for us - including from Bell :)

I think the big telcos may do better at this than you think.

I recently tried the Primus version of VOIP, but have since cancelled the service within the 60 day trial period. TalkBroadband is not price competitive, is paired with average long distance plans and has traditional voice mail (ie: it does not use email or sms for notification and has no web interface). On top of that, I could not get 2 numbers transferred from an exchange that is advertised as being transferrable. What really convinced me to give up on it however was a new service that Bell Canada is offering; Single Number Reach (SNR, www.bell.ca/snr) They probably should call it 'VOIP killer'. Priced at C$19.95/month with vmail, it is a virtual number service with faxing, web interface, pager/email/sms notification and find me/follow me features. That was what I was hoping VOIP could do for me, now I've got it with my standard telephone and without the annoying 10 second wait for a dial tone and the extra piece of bling on my crowded desk. On top of that I ended up cancelling a couple of standard lines that had been used for dedicated fax and switch re-directing, saving about C$90/month.

Then there are the 'soft' features; dealing with Bell customer service is actually pretty good. They have definitely worked on the process and made the experience more useful. Dates of activation are stated and they do it on time or sooner. My Primus experience was less satisfying. It took about 5 CSR contacts and a lot of waiting to figure out that my numbers could not get transferred. The on-line sign up service for TalkBroadband has no on screen or email verification. I went through the whole process, waited 2 days and then called them -- there was no record that I had signed up -- and yes I did click the right button.

I have played with FWD using the X-Lite client and it's cool. Their voice mail system has been down for weeks, but you get what you pay for. There is much that VOIP will do for communications, but the widespread and useful services are going to be offered by the companies that have the capital and resources to make them work seamlessly. Primus has screwed up what could have been a great launch with a featureless and expensive offering; their attempt at tweaking things with some price and plan changes this week look pretty weak.

Brad Gibson
bradg at currentthinking.com

PS: Great site, great ideas and content. Things are nice and clean with the re-design but it seems to be running slower.