We were told Yahoo! Voice services would be released in the US this week and here it is. It's been available in other countries for a few months and only for a moment in the US before being shut unexpectedly and without explanation.

In short, two services are available, Phone Out & Phone In. Both require setting up a prepaid Yahoo! Voice account. Once you have funded and received activation for your Yahoo! Voice account you can begin making and receiving calls and fantastically cheap rates.

Note: the system for setting up your account appears to be getting bogged down with the initial rush of subscribers.

Phone Out service
To make calls you first need to install the latest Yahoo! Instant Messenger with Voice, and have a microphone and speakers (or headset) connected to your computer. With this setup you can call for 2¢ or less per minute anywhere in the U.S. and to over 30 countries.

Phone In service
Yahoo! is offering phone numbers which you can assign to ring your computer! Serious WOW! value there.  Especially useful if you have a brother on the East Coast and you're on the West Coast. Get yourself a phone number that is local to your brother and he can call you without long-distance charges at your computer. It is not entirely free since you will be charged the meager pennies per minute rate for the inbound call plus $2.99 a month for the phone number.

As we were warned, the newest (beta) version of Yahoo! Messenger incorporates some advertising space. In my opinion and in comparison to MSN's and AOL's Messenger borne advertising, the ad space occupied on Y! Messenger is very tolerable (i.e. small and unobtrusive).

I'd like to tell you that I've tried it out but I am waiting through the credit card validation process which involves a minuscule charge to my credit card which may take a couple days (awk!) to be seen. My expectation is the sound quality for international calls may be better than average and at par with hardwire (PSTN) local calls. There is an audio sample on this page you can listen to.

This is possibly the beginning of widespread VOIP for small businesses and residential customers.