Just in time for the VON conference in Boston (which has shifted its focus to video from voice), AOL's foray into the VoIP market is coming to an abrupt close in North America. According to Aswath, TotalTalk will be “terminated” on or about Nov. 30 in the U.S. In Canada, an AOL Canada spokesperson said the service will be terminated in October due to a “pretty challenging and competitive market”. Andy Abramson believes that rather than look at AOL's decision as a failure, it's a recognition by the company it will do better in voice through its its AIM PhoneLine service. Andy makes a good point because the “traditional” VoIP market (isn't that a strange phrase) is crowded with Vonage, 8×8, SunRocket the cablecos and even carriers. For AOL, Yahoo, MSN and Google, it makes much more sense to go the IM route than go head to head with the large VoIP service providers.
Update: According to a comment, TotalTalk subscribers in Canada have been sent letters that the service will be shut down on or about Oct. 22.
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2 Comments
Mark –
Have you confirmed this?
The Aswath link presents this as unsubstantiated rumor and as a possible hack on the totaltalk.com mainpage, yet you present it as fact and go further by commenting on the Canadian side with unattributed quotes that don't appear on either link.
The totaltalk.ca website seems to be operating fine.
Out of curiousity, who are you quoting?
Mark,
I've got some perspective on this and have shared it on my blog today.
http://andyabramson.blogs.com/voipwatch/2006/08/requiem_for_the.html