| Rival claims Skype's new pricing hikes costs by 50 percent |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Friday, 19 January 2007 | |
  
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In the first phase of the new pricing regime, effective from 8 January global dialing rates have been reduced to 0.017 € per minute for calls made to the Czech Republic, Guam, Hungary, Israel, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Puerto Rico and Alaska and Hawaii in the United States. Skype claims that, for some countries, this represents a reduction of up to 65 percent. However, while this will bring significant benefit only those users who make large numbers of calls to thee countries, a per call flag fall fee of 0.039 Euro, excluding VAT where applicable, has been introduced on all SkypeOut calls. However this does not apply to customers using the Skype Unlimited Calling plan in the US and Canada and the Talk for Britain campaign in the UK when making calls to their respective national numbers. German company Voipbuster, which claims to be "the biggest rival of Skype", greeted the announcement with a press release claiming that for almost all Skype users, the new pricing regime produced a price increase of over 50 percent. A Voipbuster spokesman gave, as example the impact of the new flagfall charge on calls from Australia. "Skype has put a connection fee of 5.9 cents on every call. That used to be zero. So, if you make a four minute call to the United Kingdom this now costs 2.7 x 4 cents + 5.9 = 16.7 cents. This used to be 2.7 x 4 cents = 10.8 cents. So this call is 54.6 percent more expensive. And this example obviously goes for all 1.7 cent per minute destinations: Argentina (Buenos Aires), Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Canada (mobiles), Chile, China (Beijing, Guanzhou, Shanghai, Shenzhen), China (mobiles), Czech Republic, Czech Republic - Prague, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Guam, Hong Kong, Hong Kong (mobiles), Hungary, Hungary - Budapest, Ireland, Israel, Israel - Jerusalem, Italy, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur, Mexico (Mexico City, Monterrey), Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland (Poland, Gdansk, Warsaw), Portugal, Puerto Rico, Russia (Moscow, St. Petersburg), Singapore, Singapore (mobiles), South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan (Taipei), United Kingdom, United States (including Alaska and Hawaii) and United States (mobiles)." Clearly the impact of the new flagfall charge diminishes as call length increases, and while the average call length on Australia's has been around three minutes for many years, that of international calls on Skype could well be greater. {moscomment} |
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