AT&T Makes A Play For VoIP
Summary
Terms of use AT&T might provide my long distance, but I hadn’t thought about its alter ego, Ma Bell, in years. Even PC Magazine’s last round up of consumer VoIP products found that AT&T’s CallVantage offered superior voice quality. Of course, that superior voice quality was the only thing that saved AT&T’s CallVantage from its “difficult installation and higher price.” Maybe AT&T knows VoIP needs a unified front to really ramp up growth in consumer markets. The company says it wants to move beyond chipsets, software and Telephone Adapters, forward to “a range of products such as corded and cordless telephones, Wi-Fi phones, game consoles, set-top boxes, routers, modems, PBXs and ACD systems.” I’m not so sure that VoIP gadgetry (no matter how cool) is quite what VoIP needs to go along with the lower phone bills that it’s so famous for. (I can’t help myself from pointing out that a VoIP flat rate is a better deal for a student with a free Ethernet connection in their dorm room than it is for somebody that has to drop $50 a month on DSL or a cable modem.)