Om and PaidContent both have notes about Yahoo and more DSL deals. These onramp deals for content continue to point to reasons why Yahoo won’t go into the PSTN replacement business any time soon.
Yahoo’s on ramp relationships with co-branded DSL programs that are in essence dial up takeaways from AOL. That’s more important to Yahoo which sees money in higher margin services like music downloads, subscriptions and other services versus the lower margin, cut throat minute stealing that occurs with VoIP based opportunities.
I actually envision Yahoo expanding their VoIP platform into more of their community tools and creating more interactive “chat” between users much like XBOX Live has done with gaming. All this technology Yahoo has between XTEN’s client code, Dialpad’s OSS operational software and their own front end means more in the way of a holistic user experience, and less of simply trying to compete with their friends at SBC and Verizon.