A report released today by The Radicati Group says that new mainstream Internet telephony applications are about to change the way consumers (not just enthusiasts) make phone calls. (Nothing surprising there, I guess, but it's interesting to see Radicati commenting on this -- they do publish some great content about messaging trends.)
The report, called "Focus: Internet Telephony Goes Mainstream," is in the May 2005 issue of Radicati's monthly newsletter, "The Messaging Techology Report." (Note: An executive summary is available here.)
Radicati says adoption of Internet telephony was slow until recently, but the research firm believes that the technology is about to hit the mainstream thanks to its incorporation into instant messaging applications by AOL, MSN and Yahoo!, and the efforts of independent service providers like Skype and Teleo. Radicati's 12-page report reviews and compares these five services.
The report says that, while none of these services is as simple or ubiquitous as traditional telephony, they can replace landline or mobile for "certain applications." And "as the Internet becomes increasingly integrated into the daily lives of individuals," PC-based calling will "become more convenient and less costly" than PSTN calling.
In its reviews, Radicati's report says that out of the three IM applications (AOL, MSN and Yahoo!) reviewed only AOL's IM offers calling to the PSTN. However, my colleague Tom Keating here at TMCnet reported in his blog last week that the new Yahoo! Messenger beta does in fact allow PC-to-PSTN calling (see "Yahoo Messenger Truly Has VoIP?"), although apparently this capability is not easy to find.
AB -- 5/23/05
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