Why would anyone leave a time-tested, reliable VoIP service for one that’s newer, costs more and requests change? Answer: If AT&T Inc. (T) stopped offering it. That could be the case with CallVantage.

AT&T says it’s no longer taking new orders (residential or business) for CallVantage; which was launched four years ago, created a loyal following and filled in a glaring void at the time in the telco’s voice service plan.

The service offers unlimited local and long distance calling, attractive rates and numerous features.

There’s a strong chance that CallVantage became too attractive and well received. Why else would AT&T wait almost two years to make its U-verse bundle a true triple play and roll out U-verse voice earlier this year as the third leg of its TV and Internet package?

AT&T didn’t even begin to offer U-verse voice until this past January, and still has yet to get it to all the markets where U-verse TV & Internet is available.

Ummm. So, I’m afraid to ask, what happens next? AT&T would be crazy to shut down CallVantage until customers could be moved/lured/dragged to U-verse voice or something else.

They’d be crazier to make any “transition” difficult, challenging or downright painful. Disruption could have a negative effect beyond VoIP, especially with cablecos selling the living heck out of digital voice services.

The real problem is that nobody likes to leave something they have no issues with for something new. Moving to U-verse voice doesn’t seem to offer any big price lures, though linking it to wireless service may be attractive.

In a world where technology changes most everything faster than we can keep up with, the only two sayings that come to mind in this situation are 1) People fear change. 2) If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

In the meantime, let’s hope AT&T comes out in the open with a calling plan that CallVantage customers and others can live with, instead of without.

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User Comments !

As a long time CallVantage consumer, I'm not happy with the prospect of changing, but I was under the impression that it was lack of sales that forced the change. Last estimate I saw was sub-200K users, which is not much at all. It's MGCP, not SIP, and probably used to be a cute project at IXC AT&T. Not so cute at cost-cutting new at&t. But then most stuff never makes it out of the labs at ma bell. Look how long DSL took to escape?

Posted by: Peter Radizeski | August 21 2008 11:48:54

Hi Peter,
CallVantage started out as MGCP, but it's SIP now.

Posted by: | October 09 2008 19:51:24