As I predicted on July 3rd, AT&T would soon be dropping its CallVantage broadband VoIP service since they dropped their affiliate marketing channel.Well, today I learned that AT&T is no longer accepting ANY new orders from ANY source - affiliate or otherwise. The slow death of CallVantage is a bit sad, but it isn't particularly surprising, not only because they dropped the affiliate channel last month but as I have previously indicated, AT&T is heavily promoting their U-Verse fiber-to-copper hybrid service that combines IPTV, data, and U-Verse Voice (in select areas).
It seems a little early to cut the cord on acquiring new Callvantage customers since neither U-Verse or U-Verse Voice are available in most of the country - including my neighborhood where it was promised for this summer. I would think they would want to acquire these customers on CallVantage and then easily port them over to U-Verse when it becomes available in their area. It is much easier and less expensive to retain an existing customer than acquire a new one. But perhaps CallVantage was burning money and wasn't profitable? Unlikely since there isn't a lot of overhead in offering VoIP, especially since AT&T has a vast network they already pay for. My guess is that internal politics played a role more than profitability. It's too bad. Callvantage has some cool features that other broadband VoIP players didn't have. Could be good news for Vonage, Packet8 and the rest - one less single-play provider...
Check out the announcement made on their website:
Thank you for your interest in AT&T CallVantage® service. Currently we are not accepting new orders for AT&T CallVantage service. We will continue to evaluate our AT&T CallVantage service and remain committed to providing leading, next generation voice services for today's consumer and business customers. For information on other AT&T products and service please visit www.att.com
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"AT&T is no longer accepting ANY new orders from ANY source - affiliate or otherwise". Oh well, living is under way farther. Thanks for the information.
Kind regards
Noclegi
I liked the access to phone messages on line. do you know anyone that offers the same voice mail options?
Yes. Try Vonage.com. Their service is now comparable in quality to CallVantage and offer even more features.
I have been using CallVantage at least since 2005. It had more issues early on (not often and not severe), but for the last several years, the service has been excellent. I received a letter April 21, 2009, from CallVantage indicating that at some point in the future they were going to be discontinuing CallVantage, no date was given. The letter detailed that your existing phone number can be ported over to u-verse or another carrier. I was very sad to receive the letter as CallVantage was the best value available. At $19.99 for unlimited nationwide/local calling, caller ID, email notification and a nice web interface, man, there just isn't another service to take it's place. I have ATT Uverse, but do not want u-verse VOIP, I'll have to shop around now.