YAHOO plans to allow computer users to make and receive calls from phones at rates that undercut Skype and are significantly below conventional phone companies.
Yahoo a new version of its Yahoo Messenger text, voice and video communications software to be introduced in the next few days would include "Phone Out," with low per-minute charges for calls from computers to phones, and "Phone In," a low-cost subscription service for phone callers to call computer users.
The world's largest internet media company said it plans to charge US1c per minute to Yahoo Messenger users calling the United States and US2c cents to call 30 other countries including Australia, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Korea.
In all the Yahoo Messenger phone-calling service will be available in 180 countries, Yahoo spokeswoman Terrell Karlsten said.
Blair Levin, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus and a former staff member of the US Federal Communications Commission, said in a report to investors that Yahoo's move was part of a growing challenge to conventional telecommunications carriers.
While unlikely to lead consumers to replace traditional phone services on a broad scale, he said, computer-based phone services will put further pressure on phone company revenue, even as they raise regulatory issues about whether to begin requiring internet services to meet costly phone regulations.
Yahoo, which has offered some voice calling features via instant messaging software for five years, is seeking to recapture momentum from Skype, which has in two years built up a base of 68 million users worldwide, including several million of Skype Out computer-to-phone, low-cost calling services.
Yahoo Messenger calls to the United States are half the price of Skype's 2.1 cents per minute. But the Skype rate applies to nearly 30 countries, making it comparable with Yahoo rates.
"In a basic sense, Skype is functionally identical to AIM, MSN or Yahoo," said Nick Shelness, an instant messaging analyst with Ferris Research based Perthshire, Scotland who was formerly a chief technology officer at IBM's Lotus division.
"All three - AIM, MSN and Yahoo - have had audio capabilities for quite some time. They just didn't stress those features," he said.
Reuters