USA Today reports that consumer electronics retailer Circuit City will begin selling Vonage VoIP phones in all 600 locations come Monday (Circuit City to offer Vonage Internet phone service):

Those who sign up at the electronics giant will save $100. An adapter from Circuit City costs $100, but Vonage will offer the first two months of service free — a $70 savings — and waive the $30 activation fee.

Most people still have no idea what VoIP is. Moves likes this will likely increase consumer awareness of the possibilities of escaping POTS. This alone will not cause a major shift, but it is definitely a sign that VoIP is going mainstream. The next step? Vonage at Walmart, I'm thinking.

Telepocalypse uses the occasion to note that "plain vanilla" VoIP services like Vonage don't make any sense (I don't get it). He is right, but only in the long term (which might not be that long). I also think that Vonage and many of the other VoIP start-ups realize this as well.

As Telepocalypse notes, the appropriate unit price for such services should be zero. Which makes it a great business for Walmart to use as a loss leader.

Ultimately, there is going to have to be significant VoIP penetration and consumer awareness before non-plain vanilla services can take off. Heck, I'm not sure anyone knows which services will turn out to be the most valuable and we won't be able to find out until there is a significant number of people using them. Best way to get people to use it? Sell it at Walmart.