Hi Mark,
I understand your point.
When you talk of an average of 20 minutes per week, or even 20 minutes per day, local and national calls, I agree.
I think VoIP is for people who have to use the telephone a lot.
It is like faxing.
What was the use of buying a fax machine if you didn’t have the need to fax? ( you would think that 80% of the people would use the fax machine so few times that it wasn’t worth to buy one)
Nevertheless the fax machine business was a huge business.
Because it gave you the freedom to fax when and how you liked.
As an Ip phone. It gives you the freedom to call whenever and for how long you like, without having the hassle to look at the watch.
And that I can assure you is unpayable.
And it is true VoIp is not so succesful in Europe, but for example in USA or Canada it is very succcesful.
Without talking of Africa, India, Bangladesh, all East of Europe.
You have no idea how expensive is to call there. And you do not even have infrastructures and phones.
Who is going to invest millions in GSM masts for villages of 2000 people ( who cannot even afford to pay the rates)?
There investing 1000$ dollars in ifrastructures gives what they call a high ROI.
In Europe, as usual, we will wake up later.
Regards
patrizia