To: Q who wrote (22178 ) 8/18/1998 1:02:00 PM From: Secret_Agent_Man Respond to of 50264
"In IP telephony, he who gets in the earliest stands to make the most," says Weil. Regardless of where carriers are in their IP plans, one simple truth remains: The potential profits from IP are too compelling to ignore. The fact that data is catching and sometimes surpassing voice traffic on the public switched network makes an economic case for switching to IP networks, says Ray Keneipp, principal analyst for carrier infrastructure at Current Analysis. Welcome to the world of Internet Protocol (IP) telephony, where voice is just another traveler on Internet networks. Other than the tech-savvy early adopters in this country, most of the current market for IP telephony is international. And although there is the potential for growth in the U.S., most analysts say that the future is predominantly international as well. David Smith of Technology Futures, a telecommunications research concern, believes that the international voice-over Internet Protocol market will grow from approximately $600 million today to $20 billion in 2003 , while the domestic market will rise from $100 million to $4 billion. That's because hony is much more competitive domestically; witness the variety of 10cent-per-minute phone plans flashing across your television screens. But internationally, the market isn't as crowded with good rates, and companies offering Internet voice connections can do so at much lower prices. Internet telephony bypasses the access costs that apply to standard telephone calls over circuit-switched networks. Voice is essentially compressed into packets of data and sent over the Internet through 'gateways" provided by the service companies. As Smith's estimates suggest, the possibilities are vast. And analysts on Wall Street are getting excited, too. "The potential for IP telephony will be huge," says Ulric Weil of Friedman, Billings, Ramsey. ALL OF THE ABOVE WERE EXCERPTS TAKEN FROM VARIOUS POSTS ON THE VOIP THREAD NAMELY, Frank Collucio, thanks. r1