Another key milestone in the development of telecommunications in the Cayman Islands will be reached Monday when Cable and Wireless launches Voice over Internet Protocol services (VoIP).
Cable & Wireless announced details of the new service at a press conference Wednesday morning that featured performer Byron Lee making a telephone call using VoIP to his son in Jamaica.
‘This new product will enable our customers to utilise the latest technology to stay in contact with friends and family overseas at the lowest prices in the Cayman Islands,’ said Alee Fa’amoe, vice president Broadband Services Northern Caribbean.
Branded as ‘NetSpeak’ the basic plan costs $39.95 per month and allows unlimited calls to the United States and Canada.
Optional packages of unlimited calls to the UK and Western Europe or 100 minutes of calling to Cable and Wireless fixed lines in the Caribbean can be obtained for an additional $15.95 each.
C&W Voice Product manager Alfred Bodden called NetSpeak a ‘truly innovative product’.
‘The services is incredibly easy to set up and is available to any residential customer,’ he said.
NetSpeak is available to anyone with a high-speed Internet connection, including those with service from providers other than Cable & Wireless. Customers must also have an Ethernet modem enabled with Session Initiation Protocol.
It is not necessary for customers to have a PC or any other software.
Cable & Wireless installs the service for a one-time fee of $39.95, which includes the cost of the NetSpeak device.
NetSpeak customers must make a one-year commitment for the service.
The NetSpeak device plugs into a regular telephone handset.
Calls are then made and received just like calls to and from a regular handset.
Unlike in the early days of VoIP, technology has improved the quality of transmission.
‘Things have improved to the point where VoIP is now indistinguishable from regular telephone service,’ said Mr. Fa’amoe.
New services
NetSpeak also offers certain services never before offered in the Cayman Islands.
For an additional $5.95 per month, customers can be assigned a US or Canadian telephone number that connects directly to their line in the Cayman Islands.
This allows people in those locations to call the number at a local rate instead of making an international call.
Phone numbers are available in most large cities in North America, Mr. Fa’amoe said.
Toll-free numbers for the US can also be assigned to the NetSpeak account for an additional $19.95 for 100 minutes of calls from there.
Another feature of the service is that the device is portable, and can even be taken overseas and plugged in to any suitable modem with a high-speed connection. Customers could then talk to Cayman for a local rate.
For those plans that have limits on minutes, the extra minutes are still billed at a much lower rate than regular land line and mobile rates, Mr. Bodden said.
NetSpeak will be particularly worthwhile to those who make regular calls overseas.
While some people may not make a lot of calls to the United States, Canada, the UK or Western Europe presently, they might make more if the cost were significantly lowered, something the NetSpeak service does, explained Andrea Fa’amoe Cable & Wireless’ corporate communications manager.
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