March 21st, 2005
Do the math: here's your own personal VoIP ROI model
I know someone who recently moved and who gave up his landline in favor of cell.
He signed with Sprint PCS for a plan that costs $39.99 for the first 300 minutes, with $5 for each 100-minute bundle.
He told me that 300 minutes sounded like a lot - until he realized that with the cell as his land line as well as hismobileproviderhe was breezing through 300 minutes a week - not a month. He’ll receive his first cell bill this week,and it will probably be at least $100.
To that,I told him that if he had VoIP, he would be paying a flat $19.99 or $24.99 for his landline service. Even though he’d still keep his cell, he probably would not go over the maximum flat-fee allotment.
Add that $19.99 or $24.99 VoIP costto the $39.99 base charge for Sprint PCS, and he’d spend $60 to $65 on telcom - compared to the $100tab he’s expecting.
And if he went with a two cents a minute softphone service, his savings would be even greater. You do the math: 2 centsx 700 minutes of land calling= $14.00. Add the $39.99 for Sprint PCS and he’s made a month’s worth of calls for$54. That’squite a savings over $100.
Have you performed your own migrate-to-VoIPReturn on Investmentanalysis? If so, we’d love to hear about it. Post a TalkBack.
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
