Pulver takes stock of 2005 predictions for Voice over Internet Protocol

Voice over IP continues to gain momentum in many geographic markets, prompting many analysts, industry observers and thought leaders to speculate as to what the future IP world might look like. Jeff Pulver, IP communications pioneer and founder of pulver.com, revisits some of his 2005 predictions for the VoIP industry. While many of his predictions came true, some were more optimistic. The following appeared on his blog dated December 5. 2005 will be the year VoIP in the US crosses the early-adopter chasm – happened. Broadband penetration will begin to snowball in the US, but not at a pace fast enough to raise America’s mediocre global standing in broadband penetration – happened, unfortunately. While we will see the restart of VoIP IPOs, we will also see some VoIP startups burning-out due to lack of marketing funds, customer base and vision – still waiting for the pure-play VoIP IPOs. 2005 will be the year of still more major carrier VoIP announcements, as well as very significant product announcements from major non-carriers, including software and Internet giants – happened. As the debate grows over the meaning and application of "Net Neutrality" and consumer empowerment, new battle lines and tangling alliances will form between and among carriers, vendors, application providers. Debate will grow over the continuing role for unaffiliated, non-carrier VoIP providers – unfortunately, right on the money. A. The FCC will not establish an IP-Communications Bureau – correct.B. The FCC will release an Order in the IP-Enabled Services Proceeding setting forth a broad hands-off approach for VoIP – I was really off base here.C. The industry will spend several years sorting out what it all means.Governments around the world will take a closer look towards regulating VoIP. VoIP providers will respond by stepping up efforts to confront many of the social issues, such as emergency response and lawful intercept – happened, sort of. Carriers that have not adopted a VoIP strategy by 2005 might not be around in 2007 – prediction appears to be on target. Wireless will continue to replace wireline at a faster pace – happened. ENUM continues to happen around the world and the US will continue to lag – true enough. Open source communications continues to gain momentum. The effects will be felt in 12-18 months – timeline might have been a little optimistic.) IM and incidental communications and applications, such as presence, continues to grow unregulated – might be wrong unless the IM platform providers step up lobbying efforts. Universal service will move to a connections-based system – not yet, but still likely, although I fear the reform will be done in such a way as to handicap unaffiliated VoIP providers. Access rates and inter-carrier compensation will trend down, although we will not yet see the long-anticipated unified intercarrier compensation reform in 2005 – mixed results with the FCC continuing to punt on the inter-carrier compensation issues and its failure to explicitly state that VoIP providers should not pay economically-unjustified monopoly rates to last-mile access providers has curbed VoIP deployment. Sides are further drawn as congressional debate grows over the likely rewrite of the Communications Act of 20xx. We find out who our friends are and who was just giving lip-service – correct, unfortunately. If 2004 was the year of Wi-Fi, then 2005 might be the year of Bluetooth. 2005 will see the emergence of the first dual, or multi-mode, phones capable of switching from WiFi to mobile wireless, and perhaps to landline – maybe in 2006.

Pulver takes stock of 2005 predictions for Voice over Internet Protocol

News | 12/08/2005 5:00 am EST

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