Vonage vows long-term assault on BT and Vodafone

North American internet phone company Vonage is preparing an assault on Europe's telecom sector with the UK as its bridgehead., It will undercut France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom by offering cheaper services in Europe and plans the same for BT, by using broadband to provide low cost phone services., Vonage claims to win 1,000 new customers a day from US telecoms companies such as AT&T and has said eventually it will even rival mobile operators like Vodafone, by offering cheap wireless voice calls over the internet., Louis Holder, vice president at Vonage product development, said the UK was the 'first logical choice' for the service because it offered a 'broadband-savvy population.', "In the US we charge between $15 (£8.25) and $30 a month for our service as opposed to the average phone bill of $72 a month., "All North American calls are free and even calling long distance from New York to London cost only 3 cents a minute. Our pricing structure for the UK will be similar.", All the consumer needs to get started is a broadband internet connection. Vonage then supplies a small black box that slots into the connection while allowing the user broadband access for his PC. The black box works with any normal phone line., The technological offering from the North American company effectively competes with existing internet voice services such as BT Communicator, a package that currently bills the user as though they were making a regular call, but is cheaper when calling overseas from home., Vonage is also due to offer a service in the US that it intends to introduce in the UK and then Europe - wireless internet voice calls., The company has commissioned Far eastern manufacturers to produce mobile phones using Wi-fi, enabling customers to make free and low cost mobile calls over the internet from home as well as wi-fi hotspots in airports, hotels or coffee shops., It is thought the growth of Wi-fi will pose a threat to the mobile operators' revenues as business users will realise they can use the handsets provided by those such as Vonage, to make virtually free international calls from Wi-fi hotels and airports, instead of paying high roaming charges imposed by mobile operators., Vonage also believes the roll-out of next generation wi-fi networks known as Wi-max, will further adversely affect the mobile operators by giving consumers greater access to internet voice services from mobiles., Wi-max is a wide radius version of wi-fi. It has the backing of IT giant and chipmaker Intel, and is due to go live in high-density urban areas to provide wi-fi access., Despite claims from Vodafone that Wi-max will simply enhance 3G, Vonage plan to use Wi-max to offer cut price national and international mobile phone voice calls.