AT&T CallVantage appears on path to extinction

Comments made by an AT&T exec in Investor's Business Daily point to the eventual shutdown of the carrier's CallAdvantage voice service.

Here's how enabling events are supposed to unfold:

By the end of this year, AT&T will package its 100,000-subscriber U-verse with VOIP rather than DSL or standard phone service.This new VoIP connection will be made when  customers sign up for U-verse TV.

The result will be a $99 introductory price for voice, data and TV.

So what happens to CallVantage, a service that face it, "the new" AT&T (known as that after SBC purchased the "old" AT&T in late 2005) hasn't been marketing much?

The article quotes Ralph de la Vega, AT&T's group president, regional telecommunications and entertainment (sheesh how does he fit that all on his business card) noting that the CallVantage network had limits in how many customers it could support. "CallVantage has capacity limitations, this new offering doesn't," he said.

Hardly a ringing endorsement, you know.

In the meantime, CallVantage may be living on borrowed time as a neglected stepchild, up until AT&T upgrades a significant enough portion of the 13-state legacy SBC network for U-verse and an enhanced flaor of VoIP that doesn't have "capacity limitations."