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AOL's 'AIM Phoneline' offers free local phone number
Updated 5/5/2006 9:16 AM ET
By Kevin Maney, USA TODAY
DULLES, Va. — AOL is close to unveiling a voice-over-Internet service, based on its AIM instant messenger, that would give any AIM user a local phone number for free.
Dubbed AIM Phoneline, the free number would only allow for incoming calls from any phone.

Still, it's the first offer of a free number. To get a number that can be called on Skype costs about $4 a month.

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An upgraded version, AIM Phoneline Unlimited, will cost $14.95 a month for calls to all local and long-distance numbers and 30 foreign countries. Calls must be made with a headset plugged into a computer and logged onto AIM through a broadband connection. AOL plans to launch the service in the top 50 U.S markets in late May.

"We think this is a pretty disruptive offering," says John McKinley, AOL's president, digital services. AOL believes it can get a younger generation of AIM's 80 million users to consider only having a cellphone and an AIM phone, instead of paying for a traditional phone.

But success is far from assured. AIM use declined 13% to 47.6 million users from March 2005 to March 2006, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. And AIM Phoneline joins a number of voice-over-Internet (VoIP) offerings trying to win customers, including Skype and cable companies. Comcast's phone offering costs $40 a month, and CEO Brian Roberts says Comcast has signed up 1.5 million customers.

Talk features on instant messagers have been around on AIM, Yahoo, MSN and Google Talk. But McKinley says AIM's is more robust, with a phone number, 911 service and other features:

•It will be integrated with AIM and AOL e-mail. A dial-pad will drop down at the bottom of the AIM Buddy List. Voice mail, also free, will show up as an e-mail with a link to click to hear the message.

•AIM callers will get a reputation score. Users can click to tell the system if a caller is, say, an annoying telemarketer. That telemarketer will get a bad rep, which will show up whenever that caller dials. You can then choose to ignore the call.

Analyst Charlene Li at market tracker Forrester Research thinks the young AIM crowd will be very receptive. "Who wouldn't want a free phone number?" she says.

The service is part of a big bet AOL is making on AIM. Also this month, it will roll out AIM Pages — a direct broadside on MySpace. If someone on your AIM Buddy List has an AIM Page you'll get an alert whenever that person adds something to it. One click takes you to it.

Contributing: Jefferson Graham in Los Angeles