gotalk swipe at competitor Engin as new plans unveiled

Peter Dinham
Monday, 19 October 2009 13:17

Business IT - Technology

Trans-Tasman VOIP services provider, gotalk, has disputed what it says is competitor Engin’s claim to “have the best offer on the market”, and today launched its own “improved range” of new VOIP plans in an attempt to get customers to change service providers.

A confident gotalk CEO, Steve Picton, said today his new plans “will persuade thousands of customers to change service providers,” and said he “hotly disputed” competitor Engin’s claim to have “the best offer on the market.”

“We believe our combination of market leading monthly included calling allowances and low calling rates, plus the fact that gotalk customers will no longer have their service suspended if calling inclusions are exceeded, makes gotalk’s VoIP plans virtually unbeatable.”

Picton said gotalk’s customers would be able to “keep calling even if they exceed their monthly calling allowances. From today, those extra calls will be charged at some of the lowest rates in the industry where previously these plans were suspended so no further calls could be made until the next billing period started.”

According to Picton, when comparing “gotalk’s low VoIP rates to Engin , gotalk charges only 9.9c per call for local / national calls of up to 2 hours made in excess of included calling allowances on all its family of Aussie Packs,”whereas, he claimed “Engin charge more than 50% more (15c per call) in their much trumpeted and newly released “Max” plan for calls above their included calling allowance.”

Picton said gotalk charges only 19.9c per minute for calls to Aussie mobiles when the included calling allowance is exceeded, “while the Engin “Max” plan charges 27c per minute or 35% higher rates for calls in excess of their included calling allowance.”

With its new plans released today, gotalk’s “goVoIP Aussie and World Pack” offers the inclusions for $24.90 per month when combined with a gotalk broadband plan or $29.90 if standalone, while local /national calls offer 600 calls, with talk for up to 2 hours on each call.

For calls to Australian mobiles, users are offered 100 calls, or up to 500 minutes, whichever is the lesser, and for international calls, the offering is 100 calls (or up to 3,000 minutes, whichever is the lesser) to 36 countries.

According to Picton, there’s “additional value” with the “goVoIP Aussie and World Pack” which allows customers to call an additional 30 countries for up to two hours for “just 20c per call, an additional 50 countries for up to two hours for just 50c per call, while yet another 18 countries can be called for up to two hours for just 75c per call as part of the international calls cap.”

As for competitor, Engin, Picton has another swipe, saying that, in contrast, its “Max” plan offers “only 600 minutes of calls to ‘local, national, mobile and over 100 international destinations’, then additional call charges apply.”