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Yahoo! Messenger Gets Phone Service

prostoalex writes to tell us that Yahoo! has launched a new phone service attached to their Messenger service. From the article: "The calls have to be initiated from a PC, but can be made to traditional landline phones and cellphones. Yahoo customers can receive calls from those phones, as well. Yahoo will charge 2 cents a minute for domestic calls, on top of the monthly $2.99 fee. Per-minute charges to 180 other countries will vary. It won't charge to receive calls."

3 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. Who's Calling? by kidcorporeal · · Score: 4, Interesting

    We still don't have effective Caller ID for VoIP. So who's going to take these calls from your computer besides people who *know* you are calling or your dentists office? You can't use it for anything but calling grandma. Don't get me wrong, VoIP on your system is a wonderful thing, but Skype was just worthless when I'd have to make a business call and my client would say to me "Oh, I didn't know +000001234 was you." I expect the same from Google, Yahoo, or any other player looking to break into the market. Until they have CallerID implemented correctly (and *not* hackable!) it's not ready for prime-time.

  2. How doesn't this interfere by B00yah · · Score: 4, Insightful

    With their partnership with SBC/ATT? Last time I checked, sbc's dsl was "sbc-yahoo dsl". Wouldn't selling a voip level product be a stab in the back of your partner? Maybe it's just me.

  3. Re:How many digits in the phone number of the futu by gwlc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    China has a complex system.

    There are some city with 10 digital number such as:Beijing, Shanghai. You have to dail 10 XXXX-XXXX. Attention, The 10 is area code and the 8 digital is your local number. Most of the cities in china have 3 area code with 7 local number just like North American and those cities are face the shortage of number, so they want to change the local to 8 digital.

    for mobile, you have 135-XXXX-XXXX. the first 3 digital are limited to some different operator, such as 135,136 belong to china moblie,133 belong to CDMA network. The next 4 digitals used as area code which you can know where this calling coming from.

    There are alot of change and many "new" technical. I had left china for 4 years, so just for your reference.