VoipBuster Pro - Preventive Action against Skype Pro
by
on February 07, 2007,
Blogosphere has been talking about Skype to launch Skype Pro for quite a while now. VoipBuster is a direct competitor of Skype - though it does not feature Skype's popularity. And VoipBuster has definitely decided to benefit from the anticipation of Skype Pro plan by launching its own unlimited calls plan - VoipBuster Pro.
Sure, the first similarity between the two competitive products is obvious - the Pro in name. Also the connection fee is 3.9 euro cents per call for both Skype Pro and VoipBuster Pro. But then the differences are numerous - and rather impressive at that:
- a whole year of unlimited calling costs ˆ 10 (versus ˆ 24 with Skype Pro);
- Skype Pro is only intended for national calls while VoipBuster Pro enables national as well as international calls - with 44 countries for unlimited calls;
- VoipBuster Pro will be available in 44 countries while Skype Pro only in 19.
We will need to test the quality of both unlimited “Pro” plans - though VoipBuster promises the same quality. But anyway I think we'll now have to wait for the counter move from Skype.
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Bighorn
kalipso
Mav
Opensource 
Michael Fidler 
This is getting every day more and more interesting.
Let’s see how low prices will drop now, that everybody is coming up with new offers to remain leader in this game.
The winners are definatelly us
regards
electrochain
Yes, we are definitely the winners. And this offer really seems to be the most interesting of those I’ve seen so far. But the terrible thing is that you need to actually be a newsmaker to expect people to notice your excellent (or even exceptional offer): this post only got a few diggs while the news about Skype only preparing to launch Skype Pro was wildly popular. I can’t help but thinking it’s unfair. Unless you go all around the Internet screaming “Unlimited calls for 10 Euro a year” no one will be actually interested.
I’ve been trying it and I have regretted that I spent 10 euros.
It’s expensive compared to the VoipBuster, or VoipDiscount. If you are a user who makes calls everyday then it’s diffidently not a good choice.
What’s the point having 365 freedays while you get charged per connection 0.039 euros? Totally useless!
Don’t forget there is a fair use policy .
300 min / 7 days.
Also you pay 10 euros, and you get 5!
Let’s take an example with VoipBuster Pro.
If you make 2 calls / day, you can talk up to ~21min / call “FREE”
And the charge is -> 0.039 x 2 = 0.078 euros for ~21 min.
———
With VoipBuster, even after the fair police or the Freedays have expired that will cost - > 0.01 x 21 = 0.021 euros. So it’s 3.7 times cheaper!!
Thank you for sharing this personal experience with us. Anyway it is quite difficult to test anything properly if you only spend several hours on it, you need actually to use it extensively.
Anoker,
voipbuster-pro includes some additional “free” locations, that are not covered by “simple” voipbuster. I believe voipbuster-pro is mainly addressed to people, who belong to that specific group.
I agree with your calculations… it’s not the cheapest solution when paying per call, but… if used differently, for example for long duration calls only (Call a free location number and let it hang up after one hour…) then you get the best value for the money you spent
By the way, the cheapest voip provider currently on the market is http://www.justvoip.com because it has the best rates (including mobile phone rates) among all of the “voipbuster family” providers with 120 freedays…
the only thing I am missing, is a free voip-in number… but that one was neither offered with voipbuster-pro only with simple “voipbuster”.
regards,
electrochain
(Sorry if I got offtopic… this post has no intention to advertise for ANY voip provider… please feel free to use your brain to decide which offer fits best for you.)
Anoker said
“With VoipBuster, even after the fair police or the Freedays have expired that will cost - > 0.01 x 21 = 0.021 euros. So it’s 3.7 times cheaper!!”
Actually, 0.01 x 21 = 0.21 euro. So let’s go back to your calculation:
2 calls per day, given no dropped calls, costs 0.078 euro.
In a year that would be 365 x 0.078 = 28.47 euro, meaning you have to spend 10 euro at the beginning (that includes 5eur of traffic) plus 23eur = about 30-35 euro per year.
With voipbuster (non pro), you spend 10 euro every 3 months = 40 euro per year! But, it’s true, you get 40 euro of credits. So let’s put that into account. Let’s say you call those 42min per day. You would spend those 10eur of credits in 1000 / 42 = 23.8 days. Meaning you would actually have to buy new credit every 90 + 24 = 114 days, that is not 4, but 3.2 times per year = 32 euro. As you can see it’s very similar to Voipbuster PRO.
Let’s see the case in which you call about 4 times per week (75 minutes max per call).
4 x 0.039 = 0.156 per week or 8.11 per year. That means an overall cost of 10 initial + 3 extra = 13 euro per year. Too bad that you can buy credits only for 10 euro at the time, so that would mean calling a little less (to stay withing the 5 euro of credit) or buy those 10 euro and use them for next year or to make more calls.
With Voipbuster (non pro) instead that would cost still those 32 euro per year. But let’s say that you call only 120 minutes per week. This way 10 euro of credit would last about 2months, meaning you would have to buy more credit every 90+60 = 150 days, that is 2.4 times per year = 24 euro per year (almost double than 13 of the PRO!)
So, given that you can make 128 calls with those 10 initial euros of voipbuster PRO, if you are a hard core caller (more than 2 calls per day) the PRO is not for you, but anyone else calling for less than that, the PRO is still a much cheaper option!!!
Cheers!