This article [link no longer available] suggests I was write a couple of months ago when I said that AT&T still planned to offer consumer dialtone, despite their announcement that they were getting out of the consumer local and long distance market.
I suggested that this masked a push by AT&T to become a major VoIP player. AT&T is helping consumers who don't yet have a broadband connection to get one, using CableLabs' Web-based tool. This is a shrewd move, and VoIP may yet save AT&T, which over the past twenty years has made a whole series of poor business moves.