Sam Diaz of the San Jose Mercury News has a nice write up about AOL’s VoIP launch that captures the essence of what AOL was looking to tell about their new VoIP offering, CallWays.
The USA Today has a more extensive piece where the writer gives kudos to AT&T’s CallVantage vs. AOL.
My view is that both companies (AOL and AT&T) will be the most impact driving tag-team propeling VoIP. AT&T will drive the adoption of VoIP in the enterprise, while still being a leader in Consumer VoIP, followed almost in lock step by the cable operators. That’s a point Diaz seemed to latch on to is his story by pointing to their mainstream audience.
But AOL, due to their sheer mass of users and their built in ability to promote to them, along with their “we’re easy, we’re simple and we work” approach as an ISP that already has convinced many millions to get online may truly be the motivating factor to their customer base which gets them to adopt VoIP. That said, AOL will only see rapid lift after they move to the next level with their second generation release. My view on this is based on an early sneak peek I saw at VON that has the bells and whistles that may really be the true differentiator in the entry level VoIP space for sometime. If released quickly that enhanced version will likely have more features, be less dependent on the need to use the traditional AOL software client that millions are familiar with and truly combine all that AOL has in their technology portfolio with the VoIP offering.
As such, while the AOL offering is very good today, the next release from AOL will be the one in my view that gives the potential VoIP adopter market something to really think about as it will raise the bar for what VoIP is, and not be just a PSTN replacement. Only AT&T is in a position to mirror this type of effort, and while some of the smaller players may roll out the feature sets like what AOL and AT&T can (i.e. Belkin with CallEverywhere and Broadvoice come to mind) I don’t see either of them having the clout or market weight to make a big enough impact like the two A’s.
As Diaz points out, AOL will bring VoIP to the mainstream mass market, something that really was started when AT&T launched their Olympic campaign last summer, and to some extent with what Vonage did online to bring SIP based VoIP telephony to the early adopter and trend setter market.
The current AOL offering is an enhanced, easy and elegant, but mostly simple to use VoIP product. Their dashboard interface is very useful with one feature being that when you are logged on to AOL, it tells you about calls coming in and lets you redirect the call to any phone in your call forward set up on the fly. Only CommuniKate from Parus Interactive does this that I know of, so while AOL is not the first to offer this live, on the fly call transfer, they are the first to make it a mass market product. While Webley does in session switching meaning the call can be transfered to another phone/SIP endpoint while you’re actually talking, AOL has taken the first step to deliver an advance feature like that to VoIP users.
When I think about it, AOL is not doing that much that is really different than the other VoIP providers. They simply made it easier. That’s what they did for online communications and with their VoIP product they stayed very true to their roots.
There are some drawbacks with AOL’s CallWays product. First is you have to get a number in your geographic area, unlike what Vonage and all the rest offer. This is tied to their E-911 offering, something AOL is making a big deal about.
Second, their pricing is on par with the offerings from Vonage, AT&T and others so from a pricing perspective, they’re no less less in cost.
AOL is using Level3 for their network. Next to AT&T, Level3 has the best network in the USA and the quality of my test call yesterday was impressive, easily on par with AT&T’s CallVantage, and better than Packet8 which also uses the Level3 network.
Lastly, AOL is a marketing powerhouse with a very smart VoIP leadership team. While the first offering won’t win over VoIP veterans, it will win over the KISS crowd of users who want simple and easy and are only using AOL as their ISP and email provider. With close to five million of those on AOL broadband, that’s a target rich audience. With the rest on dial up, AOL may have the answer to getting them to switch to broadband.
AOL VoIP Launch Gets Coverage
Lot of media on the AOL launch of VoIP….