
America Online is planning to launch by month’s end AIM Phoneline, a free service that will let AOL Instant Messenger users receive incoming calls from any phone, a company representative said Thursday. Voice over instant messaging is built into AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger, but AIM Phoneline would be the first to offer a free phone number. Those services compete with the popular Net phone company Skype, which was acquired by eBay last year.