AT&T Sends VoIP Home

Looking to sell its broadband telephony service to more home office users,
AT&T announced today at the Consumer Electronics Show
in Las Vegas that its CallVantage service is now available at
Staples .

The telecom’s Voice over IP offering for home
and small business users will be sold with an integrated analog phone
adapter and a wireless router from Linksys (a division of Cisco ).

Staples is the ninth retailer to sell Ma Bell’s broadband telephony
offering, AT&T spokesman Gary Morgenstern told internetnews.com.
Others include online giant Amazon.com and electronics chain Best Buy.

To date, most of AT&T’s VoIP pitches have been targeted at residential
users, but the Bedminster, N.J., carrier recently added a package tailored
to small businesses.

“We only made our small office plan available on [Dec. 15] and have not
begun promoting it yet, although customers are selecting it off the Web,”
Morgenstern said.

This is the second piece of VoIP news for AT&T this week.

Earlier, the company teamed with chipmaker Texas Instruments to provide VoIP equipment designers and manufacturers with
platforms to accelerate design and production time for gateways and other
components.

Products that use the jointly developed platforms will be compatible with
AT&T’s global IP network. Among the first will be dual-line corded or
cordless broadband telephone systems from VTech Communications, the
companies said.

AT&T’s move comes as competition among VoIP providers heats up among
telecoms, cable companies and VoIP upstarts. Broadband telephony provider
Vonage this week announced that it had passed the 400,000 subscriber mark.