AOL Readies Internet Telephone Service

By David Worthington, BetaNews

March 8, 2005, 4:59 PM

America Online has announced plans for a voice over IP offering called AOL Internet Phone Service that will launch within one month. The company intends to target the service to its own broadband subscribers with the intention of pushing Internet telephony forward from the early adopter stage to the mass market.

To further its ambitions, AOL has forged partnerships with Level 3 and Sonus to build its services infrastructure, and will work in unison with parent company Time Warner to complement and cross promote services. AOL CEO Jonathan Miller made the announcement during a speech Tuesday at the Voice on the Net 2005 conference in San Jose.

An AOL spokesperson told BetaNews the company has many ways in which it will promote the VoIP service to members, but said that it was too early to share specific marketing and pricing details. However, Miller hinted that the service will have tiered pricing options, including a flat rate.

Initially, AOL Internet Phone Service will be limited to AOL's broadband subscribers, but as business grows, it will develop applications for Time Warner's Road Runner service and integrate Internet telephone into its own products including AOL Instant Messenger (AIM).

AOL subsidiary ICQ already offers VoIP messaging services over its IM client and AOL has worked VoIP-powered conference call functionality into AIM. AOL's rivals are also dabbling in VoIP services; Yahoo has offered similar features and Microsoft's new VoIP-enabled Office Communicator client will be released to manufacturing in 90 days.

Yahoo has already begun to sell full-fledged VoIP telephone services in the United Kingdom, and rumors are circling about Google's intentions to enter the market as a service provider.

AOL Internet Phone Service subscribers will require a special adaptor to link their home telephones to the network. Details of the AOL service's technical aspects were first reported by News.com.