By Sharla Sikes
It’s that time of year—time to speculate on who will get you what for Christmas, and what’s going to happen in the upcoming new year.
Speculation is wild in the VoIP world. There’s certainly a lot of growth to prove the market’s a vibrant one.
With mobile VoIP becoming closer to a practical product for the average user, and unified communications the latest buzzword in the business world, it looks pretty good.
It’s not going to be all roses, however, as big communications companies squeeze out independent providers with packaged services including internet access and cable television.
Patent infringement suits plagued 2007—especially for Vonage—and more are likely to surface as communications companies battle for customers.
Security issues, as well, are raising red flags for consumers as well as IT managers.
But the lure of low-cost communications will continue to attract new business and personal VoIP converts, and the market will evolve to reflect customer trends and emerging technology.
Flexible call options and integration with other communication technologies are two most popular features.
Phil Hill, Web analyst at Vocalocity, noted that it is the year of the rat in 2008 according to Chinese culture. The connection? The rat is traditionally associated with prosperity, which is auspicious for the VoIP market.
“People born under the sign of the rat are considered to be energetic, versatile and able to overcome obstacles,” he writes for TMCNet. “Versatility and the ability to overcome obstacles are qualities VoIP may indeed share.”
More corporeal predictions include a Disruptive Analysis study suggests that 250 million users will utilize mobile phone VoIP services by 2012.
Without a doubt, 2008 is poised to bring some major changes to telecommunication as we know it and the wireless industry in particular. With the maturation of Voice over IP and WiFi, and the emerging 4G WiMax and LTE technologies, the telecommunications business model morphs into a broadband access business, offering interactive multimedia services to a data greedy populace. Driven by device manufacturers, application developers, and consumer demand, voice will share the bandwidth with email, texting, videoconferencing, GPS navigation, national security alerts, games, advertising, music, and TV, just to name a few.