In article <df6pci$r15$1$8302bc10@news.demon.co.uk>,
rh@nospicedhamhybrid-tech.demon.com says...
> I am stuck inside with a ankle and bored out my brains and started having
> thoughts about the future
>
> Just wondering if anyone has any predictions for the residential VOIP in 12
> months time?
> My predictions :
>
> VOIP will start to come into the mainstream like Internet did 8 years ago.
> most users will just want a product which works and needs no hacking about
> with port forwarding.
> So people like Vonage who have advertising money behind them and offer a
> simple box solution will
> start to dominate.
>
> Internet ISP who have been doing very little will get into VOIP big time,
> they have customer base which they
> can use and can premote better quality sound by having less latency to
> servers
>
> Internet Service Providers will start playing silly buggers with VOIP users
> to ensure their VOIP solution is used
> T&C clauses and degration of voip data
>
> BT fightring hard againt anything to do with VOIP especially the ability to
> have ADSL without a live telephone number
>
> SIPGATE still having voicemail in beta, by this time sipgate would have lost
> all the potential it has had / does have and other
> companies would have passed it by.
>
> Standard SIP sevice providers turning more to hosted PBX suppliers for the
> same cost/ or very low fees, voipfone/voiptalk have already started
> this
>
> bickering still occuring on uk.telecome.voip
>


VOIP will be for a few people, most people will stay with the bog
standard phone line, unless they can get cable.
Until BT drops the line rental (it will never happen) it is not worth
all the hassle and cost to use VOIP.
People will use some sort of VOIP on their computer, with AIM, MSN
messenger and even Skype, but as a replacement for their normal
telephone system, I don't think so.

It is not cost affective and people will only do things if it is going
to cost them less money or they are going to get something out of it.

If you want extra lines, or you don't pay a line rental, then VOIP will
be ideal, but no VOIP supplier are going to Dominate, even if Dex thinks
thay are.