R.I.P. VoIP? Not hardly

The demise of SunRocket and the ongoing woes of Vonage haven't stopped the voice-over-IP industry from continuing to push out new solutions, particularly for the small- and medium-sized business segment, where they are taking on telcos, CLECs and the cable industry.

Notably, SpeakEasy, now a Best Buy subsidiary, made a major push this month, adding ADSL2 to its service roster for higher speeds while offering more flexible pricing of its VoIP service. Also, new player magicJack announced plans to launch its service Sept. 27, featuring a new kind of connection device and a very low-cost service.

SpeakEasy's Easy Voice Office service will give small businesses hosted PBX service for $19.95 and also let them buy buckets of minutes — that will roll over if unused — to share across a company. The new ADSL2 functionality, which uses Covad Communications for last-mile access, features services of 8 Mb/s downstream with 1 Mb/s upstream for $149, 10 Mb/s down and 1 Mb/s up for $179, and 15 Mb/s down and 1 Mb/s up for $189.

These price plans compare favorably with Comcast's business service offering at $160 for 8 Mb/s down and 1 Mb/s up, said Bruce Chatterley, CEO of SpeakEasy. The company also has added Best Buy's in-store and Best Buy Business sales force to its existing roster of 5000 independent IT consultants who are selling SpeakEasy.

The magicJack proposition is a simple one — buy a device online or in stores for $40 and get free local and long-distance service for a year. The device uses a computer's USB port to deliver VoIP the company says is landline quality.

“We've taken the device right to the computer desktop where people can easily access it, unplug it and move it to another computer,” said Don Burns, CEO of magicJack. “We have with thousands of [beta] users in the field, and virtually no customer service demands.”