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New Provider Lets You Pick Preferred Network |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Wednesday, 08 November 2006 |
A new VoIP service provider which launched in Australia last
month has introduced a novel way of looking at VoIP service provision. Rather
than setting rock solid rates and forcing customers to use its preferred
network partners, Antratel takes a different approach.
With the Antratel service it's the end user that chooses how
much they want to pay for their call. Maybe it's the kids chatting to their mates
after school? No need for the best quality there, so you can pick a cheaper
service network.
Perhaps it's a very important business call and you want top
notch quality - then you can choose to pay a higher price for (presumably) a
better quality connection.
It's all up to the user rather than the service provider.
Antratel belongs to a global VoIP Exchange and has designed
its system to make this transparent. Consequently it lists literally thousands
of rates and quality indicators from a variety of different network providers.
When you place a call the systems used by most VoIP
providers will select connections by automatically selecting the lowest
connection price from the exchange.
As the service provider has to allow for the call
potentially being connected at the highest possible price offered, they sets
their call charges accordingly.
As a result, they offer fixed termination call prices,
sometimes, much higher than prices on the exchange to cover that possibility.
Antratel instead lets you pick the call rates and
connections you want to use. This also allows users to "Tune Up" their calls.
If you don't make any changes, the system will select connections
based on the lowest possible price from the exchange. Then that's what you get
charged for, not some inflated price that covers their risk.
However, if you aren't satisfied with the quality of a call
you can tune up a route manually by taking into account factors such as call
rate, number of successful calls, number of attempts (not successful calls) and
average call duration - all of which are available for you to see.
A quick look over that call rates suggests it might be worth
taking a look at Antratel's offering.
It says calls to Australian mobiles are available from 15
cents per minute, a healthy discount over what most other providers might
charge you.
It's not all gravy though, while many other residential VoIP
providers are now offering un-timed Local or even National calls, Antratel will
charge you for every second you use, so it might depend on your usage pattern.
www.antratel.com
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