AOL has decided to jump into the VoIP marketplace. It might just save the company, which has been bleeding customers for the past couple of years as people switch to broadband.
AOL has an advantage over many of the other VoIP providers; the company is going to integrate voice calls with their Instant Messenger (IM) service. It's a good idea, since you can check to see, via IM, if someone is in the office and wants to take a call. I know it's a good idea because Apple has offered this service on every Mac for free for the past two years. Apple's service, called iChat, is still much more advanced because iChat also supports video calls, and the new version coming out later this month will support video conference calls with up to four people.
But AOL has lots of customers who are likely to try their service out, and the increased revenue per customer could get the company back on track.