Yahoo, BT Unveil Instant-Messenger Voice Service  
雅虎与英国电信推出即时信使语音服务

Thu Mar 11, 9:27 AM ET  Add Technology - Internet Report to My Yahoo! 
 By Bernhard Warner and Lisa Baertlein

(中文大意)
       互联网媒体公司雅虎与英国电信集团3月11日表示将扩大合作，推出一款新的产品允许用户通过雅虎的即时信使播打电话。这一产品将在今年晚些时候推出，它将使用VOIP技术。

　　英国电信正寻求在竞争激烈的宽带市场击败竞争对手，为此它们推出了四项新的业务，VOIP语音服务将是其中一项。而雅虎最近也新增了服务项目以增加营收。雅虎已与加拿大的SBC通信公司和罗杰斯通信公司达成了与英国电信相似
的宽带接入协议。


LONDON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Britain's top fixed-line telecoms operator BT Group (BT.L) introduced on Thursday four new products to its broadband business, one of which lets users make calls over Yahoo Inc's (NasdaqNM:YHOO - news) instant messenger product.

 The new voice offering, called Yahoo Messenger with BT Communicator, uses the technology of the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which carries speech over the Internet.

Through its year-old alliance with Yahoo, BT has over 46 percent of the UK's retail broadband DSL market.

The telecoms giant also introduced a flexible bandwidth service enabling customers to increase download speeds by up to two megabits a second at the click of a button, a new customer service offering and a "rich media" digital rights scheme allowing broadcasters to stream multi-media programming across the Web.

BT is hoping the new products will help it stave off rivals in one of the most fiercely competitive DSL broadband markets in Europe. Yahoo, meanwhile, is continuing with its strategy of adding subscription offerings to boost revenues in the wake of a stagnant European online advertising market.

At 1354 GMT, BT shares trading up 1.7 percent at 183 pence, the top-performing share on a tumbling FTSE 100 (^FTSE - news) share index.

CRUCIAL STRATEGY

BT, which plans to sign up five million broadband subscribers by the end of 2006, is relying heavily on brisk demand for the high-speed Internet service to offset falling revenues in its core fixed-line phone business.

"Our target for five million broadband customers is not going to be a cruise," said Pierre Danon, chief executive of BT's Retail unit. "These offerings will be how we go from two million broadband customers today to five million."

BT is battling with over 300 broadband re-sellers in the UK, including cable companies NTL (Nasdaq:NTLI - news) and Telewest (TWT.L) and Internet groups such as Italy's Tiscali (TIS.MI), and Time Warner's (NYSE:TWX - news) AOL unit.

Among European telecoms incumbents, BT has the smallest share of the national broadband market, said Michael Philpott, an analyst with technology research consultancy Ovum.

"Broadband is key to BT. They will have to be successful on the wholesale and retail level if the company is going to succeed in the future. But they are in a worrying state at the moment," Philpott said.

Last week, it unveiled a discounted no-frills broadband service to entice more cost-conscious users. BT said it is working on further offers to bring traditional voice, Web surfing and entertainment programming to customers of its high-speed Internet business.

BANKING ON VOIP

BT will roll out the new broadband offerings throughout the next six months. Tariffs have yet to be finalized.

The flexible bandwidth would likely cost consumers an extra one to two pounds per gigabyte downloaded per month, and 100 pounds ($180.50) for rich media customers. Calls via the BT Communicator service will be charged at normal toll call rates.

VoIP, which has only recently offered acceptable call quality, is getting a boost in the United States, Europe and parts of Asia from broadband Internet access plans that allow users to stay online for a fixed monthly fee.

The BT Communicator with Yahoo service is designed to make it easy for users to switch from an instant messenger conversation to a telephone conversation. The companies said call quality, traditionally the biggest complaint for VoIP services, generated few, if any, complaints from trial users.

Yahoo and BT will share revenue from the new offering, which will be billed to users' home phone accounts.

VoIP services is viewed as the latest "must-have" feature to keep Internet customers loyal. British-based Skype Technologies set the market buzzing earlier this year when it unveiled new software allowing Internet users to make phone calls between two computers at no cost to the user.

Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo has been adding premium services over recent quarters to bring in new revenue.

It has similar broadband-access deals with SBC Communications Inc (NYSE:SBC - news) in the United States and with Rogers Communications Inc (Toronto:RCIb.TO - news) unit Rogers Cable in Canada.