New VoIP service announced by Microsoft, MCI

You know something is about to become big when even big companies are starting to notice it. It ‘s the same case with a hot technology like Voice over Internet Protocol ( VoIP) and a company like Microsoft.

Recently, Microsoft and MCI announced a multiyear partnership that aims to offer software and services that will let users call from a PC to virtually any phone in the world.

This new move directly pits the two companies against Skype Technologies SA, which offers the very popular SkypeOut service.

The VoIP service that is being initiated by Microsoft and MCI is called MCI Web Calling for Windows Live Call. This will be made available as part of the soon to be released next iteration of Microsoft Messenger called Windows Live Messenger.

Just like SkypeOut, users of the Microsoft-MCI service will need to pay a fee in order to make VoIP calls from their PCs to phones. A user will need to sign up for a subscription to the service. Users will also get one free hour of calls and pay rates that start from 2.3 cents per minute to phones in the US, Canada, the UK and Western Europe during the beta testing phase. The final rates, however, will only be announced in 2006. The two companies hope to expand the VoIP service to other countries like France, Germany, Spain and the UK in the coming weeks.

With the entry of another player in the VoIP market, I hope that this would also mean a drop in prices as competition heats up. This way, the consumer wins in the end as they won’t have to pay a lot just to contact and talk to our loved ones.