Telkom competitors – where will you save the most?

Telkom has many new competitors in the telephony space, including Vox Telecom, MWEB and iBurst. MyBroadband takes a look at who offers the best deal.
There are many new local telephony providers who are emerging as a force to be reckoned with especially since some of them are taking out the big guns and plan to compete directly against Telkom’s voice services.
In the past these ‘soft-phone’ offerings only permitted subscribers to make calls to traditional fixed line numbers and users were unable to receive calls, unlike online VoIP telephony services like Skype.
But this is changing, and players like Vox Telecom and MWEB are supplying subscribers with their own 087 number which enables customers to both make and receive calls.
The VoIP services from these companies generally offer significant savings on national, international and cellular calls.
Basic service offerings
Vox Telecom offers what is likely the most innovative service in the market today. It provides users with a quality ADSL router - that has multiple dect-phone capabilities and wireless connectivity - at virtually no cost.
To sweeten the deal further the company pays their users to receive calls. Subscribers get 20c per minute for all landline calls they receive and 40c per minute for all calls from cellular phones.
The Vox system also has a one-button facility to move between their network and Telkom’s service, something which can come in handy when making local calls where Telkom is cheaper.
MWEB’s offering has the advantage of no monthly subscription fees and provides very competitive local call and national call rates. They also offer free on-net calls for the whole day whereas with Vox the on-net calls are only free during off-peak times.
iBurst’s rates seem quite steep when compared to the MWEB and Vox services, but the company is in the process of revamping its offering which may see price improvements.
The iBurst iCall service also does not yet allow for incoming calls, but according to the company they plan to offer this facility in the near future.
Overview
The following table provides a broad overview of the current rates from Telkom, Vox Telecom, MWEB and iBurst.
It should be noted that customers using their VoIP service on an ADSL connection are still subjected to Telkom’s installation and monthly rental charges despite using an alternative service. Source: mybroadband.co.za