AOL announced an impressive VoIP offering, TotalTalk, which will be available October 4 (the TotalTalk site says "coming soon," but you can get a general taste here).

The offering, available via the new AIM Triton client, has a suite of integrated communications features and is positioned as an alternative to traditional phone service ("a quality phone service that is simple to use and affordable, with savings of up to 40% off monthly phone bills, compared to traditional landline service. No AOL subscription is required . . .")

In other words, it's your familiar phone, just cheaper, more flexible and feature rich. Indeed, the recent flurry of VoIP-related activity is sure to help demystify VoIP and raise its profile among mainstream consumers who have been leery because of confusion and concerns about quality, reliability and security.

Frost & Sullivan predicts that VoIP lines will grow from approximately 1.5 million last year to about 18 million by 2010.

Here's the full press release.

AOL announced an impressive VoIP offering, TotalTalk, which will be available October 4 (the TotalTalk site says "coming soon," but you can get a general taste here).

The offering, available via the new AIM Triton client, has a suite of integrated communications features and is positioned as an alternative to traditional phone service ("a quality phone service that is simple to use and affordable, with savings of up to 40% off monthly phone bills, compared to traditional landline service. No AOL subscription is required . . .")

In other words, it's your familiar phone, just cheaper, more flexible and feature rich. Indeed, the recent flurry of VoIP-related activity is sure to help demystify VoIP and raise its profile among mainstream consumers who have been leery because of confusion and concerns about quality, reliability and security.

Frost & Sullivan predicts that VoIP lines will grow from approximately 1.5 million last year to about 18 million by 2010.

Here's the full press release.