Calling rates

Hello EQO marketing/pricing team,

You have a great product and I love using it. Because I like you guys and want you to do well as a company, I'd like to bring your attention to your calling rates, as compared to competitors. In your highly-competitive business, where people are using your service primarily as a means to save money, there is a high price elasticity of demand, so it's important for you to remain price competitive.

I've been comparing rates for different alternative services for calling from a mobile phone. No two services are identical, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages, so a direct 1:1 comparison is somewhat impractical. These services, however, can generally be seen as alternatives to EQO.

Also, it would be impractical for me to compare every specific calling scenario here. For example, there may be exceptions for calling from and to different destinations, calling to "in program" subscribers vs calling out. I have not done a 100% complete analysis here, and I have not looked at every competitor, but I have looked at a few competitors at a high level, and here are my overall perceptions.

Most expensive: Truphone (Truphone Anywhere service)
Benefits:
- excellent call quality
- no roaming charges
- well integrated directly into the phone interface
- free local phone number in USA or UK, with free voicemail-to-email
Drawbacks:
- fixed line phone numbers limited to USA and UK

Expensive: EQO (EQO calling service)
Benefits:
- great IM & SMS features
- easy to use, but separate, user interface
- lower calling rates to other EQO members
Drawbacks:
- requires completely separate application with separate GUI

Moderate: Gizmo (Gizmo VoIP service)
Benefits:
- well integrated directly into the phone interface
- also works from PCs & fully integrates
- local fixed phone numbers available in many countries
Drawbacks:
- only works over WiFi

Low priced: Skype (Skype To Go & Skype Mobile services)
Benefits:
- generally very good call quality
- loaded with features and options
Drawbacks:
- Skype-to-go only works in a few countries so far
- On Nokia/Symbian phones, calls not using Skype-to-go only work by using Fring, which has poor call quality

Lowest priced: Rebtel (Rebtel service)
Benefits:
- no software to install
- works on ANY mobile phone (can use from home phone too)
- very simple to use
- FREE mobile-to-mobile calls if both users use Rebtel
Drawbacks:
- no tie into phone's address book, so each contact must be pre-configured on the web site or dialed manually

Overall, EQO has a strong and competitive feature set, but is held back by being one of the higher-priced options. EQO could benefit from decreasing its prices. If EQO could match Rebtel prices, or even come close to matching them (keeping in mind that Rebtel has no client software development expenses, but otherwise operates with positive margins on its calling rates), then EQO could become the hands-down winner in this competitive market.

Best wishes, and I hope you find this helpful.

Troy