AT&T Looks To Cable For Help Pushing VoIP

from the yes,-but... dept

AT&T has been a bit confused lately about what they really want to do. They bought a mobile phone company... and then spun it off. They bought a cable company... and then sold it off. They offered residential long distance... and then they stopped. It seems that there's no long-term planning going on there these days. Lately, they've been focused on their new VoIP offering (who would have thought that AT&T's big play is to be another Vonage?), and to help push it, they're going to partner with the cable broadband providers as a channel. That is, any time someone comes to AT&T without broadband and wants VoIP phone service, AT&T will point them to one of their cable partners. Of course, those cable partners are all working on their own VoIP offering, so what's the benefit in getting service from AT&T? In fact, with cable companies beginning to realize that they should just give away VoIP to reduce churn and better compete with the telcos, there's no reason to go with AT&T at all. Oh well. Given AT&T's recent history, maybe they're just looking to sell off the CallVantage service anyway.