AOL to Enter the VoIP Ring

FiveDollarYoBet writes "Looks like AOL is entering the VOIP racket. The service is free but it's really a Skype clone with a copper local number. They're also going to offer an unlimited version for $14.95 a month but you have to make the calls from your computer. It'll be interesting to see if it's more of a IM live chat or a true VoIP. The article also outlines their plans to take on MySpace in the near future."

Re:Ya!

[BoneFlower]

The average net use cannot figure it out in 15 minutes. A good chunk of them would be unable to figure it out if given full documentation written for their literacy level, *and* they dedicated the entirety of their being for their entire lifetime to meeting the challenge.

Never underestimate the stupidity of your average netizen. There are people I get calls from where I am left wondering how the fuck they are sufficiently intelligent to succesfully sign up for the service, or how their much smarter friend who actually signed them up could possibly have been persuaded to unleash such a monster on the net.

People are fucking stupid. Work a hell desk for the general public and you will understand completely why people need AOL to dumb things down for them. That is why AOL has succeeded thusfar, and why they probably will succeed with this. This stuff might not be for people who understand they need their computer out of the box before their ISP can get them online(hey, at least she knew she needed a computer at all), but believe me, a lot of internet users aren't even that qualified.

Re:Ya!

[zakezuke]

> And once again AOL offers us another paid service any person can spend 15 minutes learning
> to get absolutely free and legal! Pity time and warner.

According to TFA you get an inbound phone number with this sucker, for free. That's kind-of spiffy, that's almost worth running AIM. Think about it, your stuck at an airport abroad but you have your laptop and WiFI. You need to contact your non-technical person so you hit the website and msg their mobile, and boom "you've got a phone call".

Now color me ignorant, but show me another service that would permit free incomming calls without a monthly fee.

Re:Ya!

[Fred_A]

What's odd is that their current offer in France [adsl.aol.fr] is an ADSL modem with an (optionally) included voip handset meant to replace your regular phone.

Why don't they do the same in the US ?

In France having a lot of stuff included is the norm for ADSL offerings and I know the US lags a bit because of the low population density, but adding a handset to a modem isn't that hard. Or do they target dialup users ?

And for 6.90€ extra, you can change the colour of the modem! Yay!

The ISP that typically sets the trend for bundling gadgets here is "Free". Currently their ADSL2+ offering comes with a kit consisting of the ADSL2+ modem with 1 USB port, 5 Ethernet ports, a WiFi Mimo interface, a phone interface. Then there is the multimedia hub with the TV tuners (including HD), a terrestrial digital tuner, a number of connectors (SCART, etc, including HDMI, S/P DIF), WiFi link to the ADSL modem and a remote. All of this is actually Linux based ;)
You can also stream your computer's content to your TV on your LAN through VLC via the multimedia hub.

The kit comes with the TV (through ADSL in a VLC like stream), free phone and ADSL2+ for 30€ per month.

Why anybody would pick AOL over something like that is beyond me...

Overuse of fighting metaphors?

[noidentity]

What's with the overuse of fighting metaphors? Seems every third article or so is titled using a metaphor related to fighting. Most commonly it's "X to be the next Y killer?" Maybe some people need spend more time playing competitive video games.

Re:Ya!

[Anonymous Coward]

> Looks like gizmo is $3.00/month for inbound calls. Not a bad deal.

Yeah, Gizmo charges. What i was saying is that Gizmo makes the nicest softphone application. At the moment it's hardcoded to use Gizmo accounts, but the 2.0 version that's currently in testing (for Mac OS X) seems to support 3rd party SIP/IAX providers.

Since Sipgate only providers Windows software once the 2.0 release of Gizmo is out they'll be a consistent softphone out for Windows/Linux/Mac that'll work with any SIP provider.

> The "sipgate" is saying "Customers who sign up with sipgate for geographic phone
> numbers in the UK, must reside within the UK." Looks like I could get a number in
> Germany, which could be handy.

Their are other providers out there that do similar.

http://www.voipuser.org/ [voipuser.org] provides a non-geographic UK number that can be pointed towards any SIP number for free.

http://www.voipstunt.com/ [voipstunt.com] provides a free number in several countries. I believe they require a small fee (10Euro for 3 months i think) which gets you unlimited calls to many countries for free, and cheap calls to many others (which comes out of the 10Euro you've paid). Voipstunt only has Windows software but, again, they are SIP/IAX providers so any softphone should be able to connect (including the forthcoming Gizmo 2.0 ^_^).

I don't personally have any experience with any of these companies except Gizmo, which suits my needs perfectly. I have one of their UK local call-in numbers and it all works with no problems at all.

Cold Calling on Voip is pretty close then

[rucs_hack]

If AOL are starting in on voip, then someone's going to start thinking about the potential of cold calling revenue. the only person I know still using aol is cancelling soon because they are bombarded with non blockable adverts within the aol client whenever the log in. I can see it now, coding late into the night, or playing games, and getting constantly interrupted by people trying to sell me insurance/double glazing/marital aids, whatever. If anyone starts it, it'll be aol, and as soon as someone does, everyone will. I imagine there will be an attempt to get voip users to accept that cold calling on voip is benificial to them, in much the same way that 'trusted computing' is useful (yeah, right).

Taking on MySpace using paranoia

[malsdavis]

"The article also outlines their plans to take on MySpace in the near future."

My bet is that "taking on MySpace" means a huge marketing campaign to 'warn' parents of the supposed 'dangers' of MySpace and how their expensive & restrictive system will be so much safer. Thereby getting the parents to force teenagers and such to switch.

If AOL are lucky they may even be able to get the parents to pay a monthly fee to switch and 'ensure' their childs safety. Such is the paranoia spread by the mainstream media these days.

OT: Re:Ya!

[wawannem]

Just good marketting.
I'm old enough to remember the days when Compuserve (before being bought by AOL) had real TCP/IP that allowed Minix users to connect over a modem while AOL had some hacked up custom protocol that worked by replacing all network related apps on windows.

Look who's still around...
That's Marketting with a capital M
or maybe just lazy/ignorant users.

As a former employee of CompuServe which was absorbed by AOL, I think I should weigh in on this issue. CompuServe is still around in multiple incarnations. One is a flanking brand to AOL's traditional dialup product. It was a way for AOL to provide a little bit of a cheaper dial-up with the intention of stemming customers from flocking away because of price. This product is called CompuServe2000 (or CS2K). This product was around before Netscape.net and isn't quite as low-price as Netscape, but is significantly less than traditional AOL. If any of you have ever used it, you would probably notice it is just AOL with a bunch of different logos and colors. However, CompuServe Classic still exists and has quite a few customers especially in places like Europe where people weren't upgrading their computers every year.

As far as Marketing being the reason that AOL is still around, I would disagree. Compuserve was an old company that was started out of an even older company (H&R Block). CS had been around quite a bit longer than many of us have been alive. In fact, I remember celebrating some employees' 30-year anniversaries at CompuServe. IMO, CompuServe eventually lost in the marketplace because they didn't move quick enough to make a fun/happy/colorful service. Being matured and experienced, CompuServe spent their resources making their products and services reliable and trustworthy. Then, the 90s came around and every soccer-mom and junior high student wanted to get Online. And, both AOL and CompuServe had CDs and rebates everywhere you looked. In those days there was a third competitor some of you may remember called Prodigy. Just about everyone with a computer tried all three. As far as glitz, colors, and the rest of the hoo-haa was concerned, AOL won. CompuServe made a last ditch effort called CompuServe WOW! which was too much money spent way too late in the game. It was shortly thereafter that MCI/WorldComm took over and sold the CS client and customers to AOL.

I'm sure I'll be modded down, but even though the /. crowd may think that everything happens because of evil things like Marketing or that companies who do the right (using open protocols, making a service reliable) thing get punished. But, in this case, sticking to open protocols made CompuServes infrastructure much more difficult to expand. I've defended AOL in the past and will continue to do so on this topic. AOL was built long before NATting, they built an infrastructure in the late 80s / early 90s that supported millions of dial-up users that worked. It might not have worked that well, but it worked. Their competition couldn't keep up because they pushed products out the door and jumped on all kinds of opportunities.