An international voice over IP (VOIP) provider, offering Internet telephony for the small and medium enterprise (SME) market, has launched in SA.
Howzitonline.com provides VOIP services to 200 countries worldwide and claims its offering is ideal for the home user and SME market, as it offers savings of around 80% to 95% compared to the standard Telkom rates for the most popular international destinations.
"For an initial once-off cost of $100, users will receive a USB handset that plugs into their PC or notebook, dialler software, cabling and 550 minutes to the US or Canada or equivalent to over 200 countries worldwide," says Canadian-based spokesman, Allan Carbardo.
"If you place a call to a landline number from SA to New York, it will cost four US cents a minute, while a call to London will be five US cents a minute. This represents in excess of an 80% discount when compared to Telkom`s standard rates."
Carbardo says Howzitonline.com expects to do particularly well in SA, due to its proprietary bandwidth compression technology which ensures excellent voice quality and is thus ideally suited to the bandwidth-constrained environment in which South African users operate.
"The phone looks and works like a regular phone, but instead of requiring a phone line, the phones use a computer USB or Ethernet connection to make and receive calls, and once logged in, users can receive calls to their assigned number anywhere in the world," says Carbardo.
"Typically, calls could be received when travelling in an overseas country using a wireless notebook computer, so there are enormous implications in terms of reduced call costs when roaming overseas."
He says no billing is involved, as everything is prepaid and done online, while the most suitable connection for users is broadband - typically such services as ADSL, ISDN, MyWireless and iBurst.
In other VOIP news, Sentech has announced it has selected Verso Technologies` next-generation Class 5 VOIP solution, which will support the deployment of its residential and managed enterprise voice services.
Through a distribution partnership with Grintek Technologies, Sentech is deploying the Class 5 solution, which will enable Sentech to offer residential services over its access network. It will also allow it to offer VOIP services and provide interoperability testing, positioning it to offer a range of services for deployment at customers` premises.
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