While we weren't able to attend the year's Fall 2006 VON Conference and Expo in Boston, we did take note of several announcements we'd like to cover this week.

Covad announced nationwide availability of Covad ClearEdge Office, rightfully claiming it as "the first combined VoIP and high-speed Internet offering built specifically for very small businesses."

The service is targeted at businesses with between five and 19 employees - a market that has until now had to choose between a consumer-centric service like those offered by Vonage, AT&T's CallVantage, or Verizon's VoiceWing service, or pay for a voice and data bundle product that is typically bundled with a T-1.

Although the service is a VoIP-based phone service, the Covad-supplied equipment and installation includes a gateway so customers can continue to use their existing analog phones. The phone service includes traditional business voice calling features like call waiting, call forwarding, and hunt groups as well as VoIP provided features like a Web-based dashboard and follow-me/find-me functionality.

The data connection uses DSL for the data and voice lines and includes, according to a company statement, a "voice-optimized access (VOA) solution [which] preserves VoIP call quality by prioritizing voice over data traffic on every call and thereby ensures a quality calling experience."

Pricing depends on the number of lines needed and the DSL connection speed required to support both the voice and data. Although specific pricing was not released, the services are targeted to meet the needs of "businesses with fewer than 20 employees."

We applaud Covad for going after this underserved market - bringing a business-grade VoIP service to the small business customer.

Next time: A brief recap of several other announcements made at VON.

Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. Larry Hettick is a principal analyst at Current Analysis.