todays age + a bit more

Tesco's big call on internet telephones
By Garry Barker, London
January 23, 2006

FIRST it was petrol. Now it's phone calls. If Coles and Woolworths follow the lead of Britain's massive Tesco supermarket chain, they will soon be offering free phone calls over the internet as a service to their customers.

Tesco, Britain's biggest retailer, yesterday added voice over internet calls to its range of online products, offering free calls to any internet-connected computer anywhere in the world using a VoIP (voice over internet protocol) telephone handset sold in the supermarkets for £19.97 ($A47.30).

Calls to Australian landline numbers will be charged at two pence a minute (similar to the US and Canada and to any fixed-line phone in Britain).

Calls to any British mobile phone cost 10 pence a minute.

Tesco has led British retailing's move into internet-based trading since it introduced its Tesco Mobile shopping network under the motto: "You shop, we drop", in September 2003.

More than a million Britons now order their supermarket goods online and have them delivered to their homes or offices. Tesco is also now one of Britain's largest petrol retailers, offering discounts much as Coles and Woolworths do in Australia through their Shell and Caltex branded service stations.

British Telecom and electronics retailer Dixons already sell VoIP packages and Skype, the Scandinavian-designed technology that brought internet phone calls to the people, has a huge following in Britain. Skype, recently sold to US online auction company eBay for about $US4 billion, is still the world leader with close to 60 million users registered around the world.

Andy Dewhurst, chief executive of Tesco Telecoms, as the new venture is called, said mass-market consumers were now ready to move to internet phone calls. The technology had advanced to the point where enough people had upgraded to broadband connections to make the venture viable, he said.

British Telecom, which like Telstra has the dubious distinction of owning the national copper telephone network, could find the Tesco offering accelerating the decline of its fixed-line revenues although John Petter, chief operating officer of BT's retail division, has been quoted as saying an hour on BT, off-peak, would cost one-twentieth of Tesco's advertised charges.

Market watchers generally thought there was little threat to BT in the Tesco move. BT owned the lines on which most broadband calls were made, and had so many would-be retail competitors that it was substantially battle-hardened, they said.

Nonetheless, Tesco has emphasised that the now substantially improved VoIP technology has arrived and telephone calls are fast becoming free, forcing telecommunications carriers to look to other services for their money.

Julian Hewett, of Ovum, the British technology industry analyst company, said consumers generally were now confused about call charges and tended to go for names they knew.

"The issue is the weight of the Tesco brand against the fact people may be able to get better value elsewhere," he said.

As part of the £20 start-up deal, Tesco customers will get a phone, £5 in free calls, and what is called a "non-geographical" telephone number that can be taken with them should they move house.


the following article is an oldy (nov 2004) but gives us some idea of what the deal with unwired (UNW) is all about.


Walmart Crushes AOL and adds WiMAX, WiFi, VoIP
November 04, 2004
"Walmart Crushes AOL and adds WiMAX, WiFi, VoIP." Sounds like a great breaking news story doesn't it? Well, unfortunately right now it's merely "hypothetical".

skibare brought an idea to my attention that Walmart could buy Vonage or some other VoIP broadband service provider, sitck some WiMAX equipment on all of their roofs and start selling VoIP over WiMAX. The thought actually crossed my mind as well 2 years ago but with long-distance WiFi not WiMAX, but I'll give skibare credit for this one.

skibare wrote: "think of the DEMOGRAPHICS and Synergies of WALMART and HIGH SPEEED wifi/WiMax/VOIP -- all in one everything Walmart............think of the DEMOGRAPHICS of how many stores, how many shoppers, how many POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS hit their front door every day. its like 20 Million a DAY every day........."

Let me expound his idea a little further. Walmart certainly does own A LOT of real estate with buildings EVERYWHERE in the country. I think the Walmart rooftops could be a very HOT and precious commodity similar to the Central Office (CO) - perhaps going to the highest bidder or perhaps Walmart will keep it for themselves. I bet 90% of the U.S. population is within 25 miles of a Walmart - well within the range of WiMAX.

Walmart could not only provide VoIP over WiMAX - they could become the next Internet Service Provider (ISP) that takes down that titan known as American Online (AOL).

Forget Triple Play! Imagine the bundling deals Walmart could do! They could offer Internet connectivity, broadband TV/video, online coupons, and more. In theory, they could have their own special web browser that pops up with specials going on at the local Walmart. i.e. "If you leave in the next 30 minutes, and go to the Norwalk Walmart you can purchase a new Toro XYZ lawnmower for just $99.99!"

Heck, they can even offer the first year of WiMAX Internet connectivity for free just to build up the base and then start charging. Actually, I have a prediction to make. Soon there will be virtually no profit in just a plain dumb bandwidth pipe - it will be about the enhanced services such as voice, video/TV, wireless access, etc. ISPs and especially broadband bandwidth providers will be so competitive -- just like the VoIP players today -- that they will offer bandwidth for free and then charge you for services. So if my "FREE broadband Internet prediction" is correct, soon broadband Internet access will follow in the footsteps of the recent "VoIP price wars" which are causing VoIP prices to inch closer and closer to free. It's a fun time we are living in...