Even before the industry absorbed the concept that Google, Microsoft and eBay were encroaching on the Internet voice market, one major new player emerged and two existing ones announced major expansions at Fall VON 2005 last week.

EarthLink made its first dive into the voice-over-IP (VoIP) pool at VON, while AOL announced a major VoIP expansion. Comcast said it is finally ready to get aggressive on marketing digital phone service. Each is aiming at primary-line replacement and doing a large volume business in the residential and small to medium-sized enterprise markets.

“These are major consumer brands being associated with voice, and I think you have to put eBay, Google and Yahoo into that overall trend,” said Kevin Mitchell, Infonetics analyst. “Ultimately, this evolution to what IP overall is enabling will change how customers perceive voice — does it go away as a service or become just a feature of many other services?”

Mitchell was particularly impressed by Microsoft's announcement with Qwest of VoIP-enabled managed services for SMEs. “This shows how quickly Microsoft can move,” he said.

Yahoo, for now, is downplaying VoIP as a service, in deference to its broadband partnerships with SBC Communications and Verizon. But Yahoo views voice as an application that becomes part of more advanced services, said Jeff Bonforte, product manager of voice for Yahoo

“Voice is an application — we don't have any aspirations to make money in voice,” he said. “What's interesting to us is how it can be integrated into other services in interesting ways.” For example, he said, teaming voice with search capabilities could make Web searches easier for those who aren't comfortable with keyboards — or simply aren't near a keyboard.

AOL hasn't impressed the market with its first foray into VoIP, launched last spring, but it is now making a more aggressive push, said Ragui Kamel, senior vice president and general manager of voice service for AOL. TotalTalk, debuting October 4, goes beyond current AOL users to the broader market.

“On the one hand, we are launching a new business which is like Vonage but with value-added content to generate new subscribers and new revenue streams,” he said. “On the other hand, we have 40 million AIM users, and we are enhancing their service with a softphone.”

TotalTalk includes a softphone client for free PC-to-PC calls and PC-to-phone calling that is higher quality than the previous AIM-based voice service, along with unified voice and other features. In addition, there is ATA-based service, similar to Vonage, that can operate in the home. Up to four calls — one ATA-based and three from the softphone — can be made from a single phone number, at different locations.

EarthLink's foray into VoIP is equally aggressive. The ISP plans to leverage its stellar reputation for customer service and support, along with partnerships with Level 3 Communications and Covad, to make VoIP its top growth priority.

“We see voice as the next growth market — it's our number one priority right now,” said Stephen Howe, vice president of voice for EarthLink. “These are early days yet for VoIP. It's a five-mile race, and the gates are just opening. There's a lot of running yet to be done.”

EarthLink's product plans include its previously launched free Internet calling service, Vling; EarthLink TrueVoice, a residential ATA-based service that will replace its resale of Vonage; line-powered VoIP, which it is trialing with Covad in Dallas, San Francisco and Seattle this year; and a convergence service it will launch through its MVNO joint venture with SK Telecom.

Covad is deploying ADSL 2+ DSLAMs for the three-city trial and will expand that deployment as its customers demand, said David McMorrow, executive vice president of sales and strategic alliances.

Howe believes dual-mode CDMA-Wi-Fi handsets, combined with ADSL2+ deployment for greater bandwidth, will enable EarthLink to deliver better data service and even a video offering, while making VoIP a popular wireline replacement service.

“The two main reasons people don't use their wireless phones today to replace wireline is that they get terrible cellular coverage in their homes, and it's expensive,” he said. “The dual-mode handsets solve both of those problems. Inside the home, you are on a Wi-Fi access point to your broadband connection. You get better reception, and it doesn't eat up cellular minutes.”

Comcast, like its cable brethren, has been marketing digital telephone service as part of its bundle but has not been as aggressive as Time Warner and Cablevision, primarily because the company had to focus on integrating its AT&T Broadband acquisition, said Steve Craddock, senior vice president of new media development. But the largest U.S. cable firm is now ready to ramp up marketing of its voice services as part of a bundle later this year.

“We will be putting a lot of money and a lot of effort into marketing what we are doing,” he said in a VON keynote.