UK incumbent carrier British Telecom has signed two major initiatives with US companies this week; a deal with Yahoo! to offer a merged VoIP-Messenger service, and one with Microsoft to offer a merged voice and Live Meeting conferencing service. Both services will be available overseas, although only the conferencing deal is truly international, with the VoIP service initially aimed at UK consumers.
The new VoIP service will operate free PC to PC, but will also link back into the telephone network and is offered in conjunction with Yahoo! and called BT Communicator with Yahoo! Messenger. The product will manage phone calls, webcam, emails, texts and instant messaging in one place on a PC, with multi way video calls expected to be added in 2005.