The Alternative Remedies Guide

Tesco has just announced that it is closing down its VoIP services from 27 April 2010. Tesco has been steadily increasing its mobile segment with a range of broadband products, mobiles and even service network in association with O2.

This has also given Tesco a wakeup call for its VoIP services. In 2006, VoIP was poised to be the future technology. With this in mind, Tesco started its VoIP service by offering goodies to its subscribers like free internet telephone calls and cheap rates to landlines and mobiles in UK for as low as 2p and 10p respectively.

But as time progressed, it became apparent that VoIP was clearly only being used by technophiles or people who were making regular long distance calls over the internet and saw value in the savings made. The rest of the market had simply switched over to the mobile and broadband products. The supermarket giant is keen on earning returns in a sector that is growing, like smartphones or mobile broadband, rather than VoIP which has not given profitable returns.

As a spokesperson for Tesco admitted to PC Pro, Tesco customers found no value in VoIP. Existing VoIP customers can expect refunds on outstanding credit but no more top ups.