India on Voip

Soon Std calls would cost not more than 15paisa. If TRAI(Telecom Regulatory Authority) pass the Guidelines for just out consultation paper for full fledge voip in domestic calls from Indian phones to Indian phones. Currently voip in India allows only International and voip to voip calls.

Currently only Mtnl is the only major players offering voip service. All other Pvt operators have been given license since 2006 however none has launched it as it may hurt there other call business along with the limitation in domestic calls make it financially not viable. If this major step is taken then domestic call rates will fall further along with cheaper availability of voip hardware.

India based Voip provider worldphone.in has started offering unlimited voip plans from this Diwali Festival. The service offered is a legal one with under regulation of DOT(department of Telecommunication) so there is an additional 12.5% service tax payable. Company has a range of unlimited and limited plans with incoming number of certain countries included. The Device or phone adapter itself cost 3000Rs which is on bit higher side compared to Mtnl which is offering it for Rs1500(Lifetime rental)

Unlimited plans are Read the rest of this entry »

From past six month there has been a rather steep cut in voip rates to India. Call rates that hovered around 8-15cents/minute are now revolving around 4-10cents per minute thanks to increased voip competition among companies and also to drop in termination charges for international calls by Indian regulator called TRAI. Some of these operators with super Indian call rates are Read the rest of this entry »

Bsnl the sister concern of Mtnl is close to launch Voip Services similar to what Mtnl launched a month back. The tariffs are expected to be same as Mtnl with calling to many international destinations at 1Re/min. This move seems significant in Voip market because private operators have so far refrained from matching MTNL’s move , BSNL’s entry into this segment is set to change the market dynamics and force other operators to follow suit.

All major telcos have not ventured into internet telephony as they fear it will eat into their revenues from traditional mobile and fixedline calls.

Today I will introduce you to some of the famous softphone based Indian Voip Providers. All of these providers requires to download a softphone client on pc along with a prepaid card of Rupee value. This card is available from many Pc stores in India also you could buy it online from provider. Most of these cards allow you to call many destinations at just 1Re per minute. Important point to note is that none of these cards allows you to make outgoing calls locally(India). This is due to fact that India is yet to allow its local Voip provider to terminate call domestically and all these providers are India Based ISPs(In India only Isps could offer voip services). Also these cards have an additional service tax of 12.24% above call value so a 1Re per min call cost 1.12Rs effectively.

Some of these voip providers with major market presence along with there web address

1)Hello World From Vsnl in agreement with Dishnet and Net2phone. (http://www.dialhelloworld.in)
2)Part of world Wide Anyuser Group.(http://anyuserindia.com)
3)PhonewallaRed from Net4India.(http://www.phonewala.com)
4)Bolanmol From mtnl Different from voip service Mtnl launched recently. (http://anmol.bol.net.in)
5)Way2Talk From Sify.com. (http://way2talk.sify.com/products.html)

There are many other small providers however there prepaid cards are not readily available in market.