Go on, pick your jaw up off the floor -- this isn't that staggering, now is it? Considering all those cellphones that have been sold here recently, and the plethora of folks who just refuse to ditch that landline, four billion total phone lines seems just about right, truth be told. According to the International Telecommunications Union, our planet is now home to about "1.27 billion fixed lines and 2.68 billion mobile accounts," but the total number of people represented by these data is much less clear. Notably, the study found that "61-percent of the world's mobile subscribers are in developing countries," and further added that China and India were greatly to thank for reaching the milestone. And just think, there were less than 1 billion lines combined across the globe just 11 years ago.

[Image courtesy of OwlRecruitment]

Fusion Telecommunications of Dubai has just entered the already crowded VoIP market with a beta version of its SIP-powered Efonica service. Registered users can chat amongst one another for free using standard telephones connected to an analog phone adapter or dial POTS lines on the cheap, with calls to the US from other countries costing under two cents a minute. What sets Efonica apart from some of the other services out there is its claimed ability to work even on dial-up connections -- still a rarity these days -- allowing people in areas with low broadband penetration to get in on all the fun offered by Internet telephony. Although the basic version of the service is free, calls to landlines or cellphones and voicemail functionality require signing up for the Efonica Plus option, which will avaiable at the end of the public beta test in about two months.

[Via Personal Tech Pipeline]

If you've made the break and use a VoIP service as your only landline, you may have noticed one of the main downsides of the option (especially if you live in a rural or isolated area): if the power goes out, so does your phone line. Hooking up a UPS can help, but can also be expensive and may not provide power for more than an hour or so. However, help is on the way, at least if you get your VoIP access as part of a bundled plan from Comcast. The company plans to offer Motorola's SBV5220 cable modem to at least some of its customers as part of its $39.95 Digital Voice service. The SBV5220 includes its own lithium-ion backup battery, which provides up to 8 hours of power. Of course, if you use a cordless phone and it isn't fully charged before the lights go off, this may not do you a whole lot of good, so be sure to keep those phones charged.

Welcome back to The Pipeline, a weekly feature where we dig through the mainstream media and see what the pundits, prognosticators and and pencil pushers have been discussing over the past week.
This week, the media was all over Nintendo's announcement that the gaming console formerly codenamed Revolution would henceforth be known as Wii. And, not surprisingly, most of the mainstream journos covering the story concurred with our assessment that the name somehow isn't going to wiin Niintendo any kudos. "Is Nintendo being desperately silly to attract attention, or is it just desperately short of clue?" asked the Guardian, while the Financial Times headlined its article "Wii aren't too sure about this." However, Nintendo did have at least one defender, Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities, who pointed out that "N-Gage and Gizmondo are cool names" that didn't help those products win many fans. "Consumers relate to the coolness of the product, not the name." Wii'll see, Michael, Wii'll see.

Of course, the Wii announcement wasn't the only story in the news this week, and the mainstream press managed to crank out a few other interesting nuggets. USA Today took a look at the Pioneer Inno, and declared it "a winner," while The New York Times looked at the growing number of home docking systems for cellphones. Meanwhile, Forbes looked at another way to use cellphones at home, checking out the market for UMA-enabled handsets. Our favorite media hit this week, though, came from the Washington Post, which took an in-depth look at the DDR-as-exercise phenom, with the paper's reporter declaring, "Hello, my name is Caroline, and I'm addicted to 'Dance Dance Revolution.'" Hey, at least she's not addicted to the Wii.

• Nintendo goes Wii ... (not a typo)
• Guardian - Nintendo Wii is twee
• Financial Times - Wii aren't too sure about this
• BBC - Nintendo name swap sparks satire
• Seattle PI - Wii is for everyone
• AP - Nintendo names new video game console
• USA Today - Look out iPod, Inno marries satellite radio, portable music
• The New York Times - A cellphone in park, even more powerful
• Forbes - Double-duty phones
• The Washington Post - Get a move on