layout: post title: "BusinessWeek: Technology Special Report - VoIP" created: 1074288180 categories:

• VoIP

Greg pointed me at this collection of VoIP articles.

It really seems like the hype-machine is in full swing, predicting the end of incumbent telcos, lots of startups and peer-to-peer services digging into the billions left on the table. With, of course, lots of VC investment/activity in this space as well.

I'm actually going to step back a bit and take all this with a grain of salt. While I absolutely believe that there is no longer (necessarily) the need for a company that is dedicated to providing only one type of service (i.e. telephony services), these same telcos still own the last mile and provide around 50%* of the broadband access to residential customers.

It's going to be a long and bumpy ride, and things continue to get interesting.

*I actually have no idea of the relative numbers of who provides high-speed access. Anyone have pointers to good, current numbers around this?