Gotalk threatens PSTN with ‘unbeatable triple the difference’ deal?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 03 March 2008 11:20

IT Industry - Strategy

Naked DSL, VoIP and phone card provider Gotalk has promised to ‘spark a major controversy in the Australian telco market’ with a challenge ‘it believes no competitor will be able to beat’. Deal or no deal?

Gotalk is offering to pay “triple the monthly difference to any customer who can find a better value VoIP solution than their Aussie Pack when bundled with their Naked DSL”.

At ‘Kickstart’, a technology conference held once a year in Australia that I’m currently attending, Gotalk’s Marketing Manager, Pauline Sabin explained that since launching their Naked DSL offering four weeks ago, they have been “pleasantly surprised at the volume of enquiries and subsequent signups”.

These signups have numbered in the “thousands”, although Sabin wouldn’t specify the exact number, something that competitors would no doubt like to know.

So Gotalk’s new offer seems a clear attempt to generate even more interest in their new Naked DSL offerings and sign up even more customers, as you’d expect any business to want, however in a clever marketing tactic, their new offer is only available during the month of March (2008).

Gotalk’s CEO Steve Picton explained their new market offering in a press release, provided by Sabin, saying that: “Our offer is very simple – and a very direct challenge to our competition. Our award winning VoIP Aussie Pack already offers customers the best value VoIP plan on the market, but for the month of March, any customer who signs up to one of our new Great Escape Naked DSL plans will get Aussie Pack for half price for half of their contract term.”

Explaining what this means in dollar figures and actual call time, Picton said that: “This means that for just $7.47 per month, customers will be able to make a staggering 300 local calls, 300 national calls, and 100 calls to Australia mobiles.  We challenge any competitor to beat that.”

Continuing, Picton offered that: “It also means that with our Escape with the Lot combo offers, a customer will be able to get ADSL2+ broadband with 9GB of data downloads, all of their local and national calls and calls to Australian mobiles, AND a mobile cap plan with $100 of included calls all for less than $77.50 per month, and all on a single bill.  There has been much talk about the Triple Play at this and other events and even the future being the Subscription model. Well now the talk is over – ‘It has arrived’ ”.

So, what is their ‘triple the monthly difference’ offer - and will it be available to everyone? Please read onto page 2.