Soropa Blog

The top dogs are betting that consumers will soon change how they make phone calls reducing the need for a phone line from a traditional provider. VoIP essentially turns telephone calls into data which is transferred via an IP network, and due to this simplicity the future for VoIP seems promising.

Ever since Skype introduced software for voice calls on computers the industry has been buzzing. Google has entered the Voice over IP industry with an IM and voice application and is testing a wireless customer service that has the potential to deliver data to wireless devices.

The electronics companies are already starting to launch double purpose products such as digital cameras that appear to be a normal digital camera but when a person slides the back of the device down, there’s a keypad for making calls. Memory sticks preloaded with a softphone are also now available. They come with a microphone and earphones.

Companies such as Google, Yahoo, and EarthLink have already played around with such technology. Last spring Yahoo added improved Voice over IP calling to its Yahoo Messenger. Google has also released Google Talk. AOL announced it would be offering its VoIP service called TotalTalk. AOL’s TotalTalk will essentially let people replace their traditional landlines. It has advanced communication features, such as unified voice, e-mail and instant messaging, and call-management.

It could be argued the phone companies will face a huge challenge with these drastic changes coming to the fore with VoIP technology.