Yahoo Launches VOIP Service
MARCH 22, 2006
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=91268&print=true
Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO - message board) has launched its paid PC-to-phone
VOIP services -- called Phone Out and Phone In -- for users of its
Messenger application, and is now playing catchup with Skype Technologies ,
which launched its revenue-generating IP telephony services in July 2004.
(See Skype Calls Out, But Is the Pope In? .)
An official launch announcement of the Yahoo services is expected later
today, but they are already available at this site. Like the Skype
services, users set up a pre-paid account and then run down their credit by
making calls.
The services, which have been expected for a few months, follow Yahoo's
purchase last year of VOIP firm Dialpad. (See Yahoo Jumps Into Voice and
Yahoo Enters VOIP Fray).
And the per-minute rates for the Phone Out service (calls from your PC to
fixed and mobile numbers) are, as you'd expect, rock bottom -- just 1 cent
per minute to call any number in the U.S. (unless it's directory
assistance, then it's 8 cents per minute), and the same rate for Canada and
London (it's 1.5 cents per minute for other U.K. fixed lines, and 17 cents
per minute for U.K. mobile/cell numbers).
The Phone In service, where the user gets a regular phone number, initially
only covers certain phone code areas in the U.S., France, and the U.K., but
anyone can use those numbers, no matter where they are based, as the number
is tied to the Yahoo Messenger account and not a physical line. It costs
from $29.90 per year for each numbered account.
A free VOIP service between users of Yahoo's instant messenger service has
been available for a long time, but the pressure is on all the players in
this Internet user land-grab sector to add more and more features and
enable interoperability with existing communications systems and each
others' platforms. (See Skype's Still Talking to Itself, Microsoft Buys a
Second VOIP Firm, Google, SIPphone Hook Up, AOL/Google: VOIP Buddies , and
MSN, Yahoo Link IM Services.)
Now the attention in the Internet and VOIP services sector will turn to
Google (Nasdaq: GOOG - message board) to see if it follows Yahoo with an
extension to its free Google Talk service. (See Google Clicks to the PSTN?.)
But Google is tight-lipped. "We never comment on anything until it's
launched," says a spokeswoman. So is a Google Talk paid-for VOIP service
due to be launched, then? "I didn't say that, and we can't add anything to
that," she retorts.
Ray Le Maistre, International News Editor, Light Reading
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