Vo I P

Michael Powel, Chair of FCC, says: "VoIP is greatest communications innovation since the telephone." The "Bells", cable TV, internet, and wireless phones are all converging in VoIP.

The company which has "real VoIP" is Vonage.

IP="internet protocol"

the thing to watch for is "session initiated protocol".

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Finally, you may have heard of Internet telephone service, technically known as VOIP (Voice Over IP): little boxes that plug into a cable modem or D.S.L. You plug an ordinary phone into the box, and suddenly you can make all the long-distance, regional and local phone calls you want for a single monthly fee. (You use the phone as you would your old phone, but technically, your calls are being routed over the Internet instead of Ma Bell.) The competitors included AT&T, Vonage, Broadvox and others.

AT&T CallVantage always had superior features, including a unified private Web page that lists all incoming and outgoing calls, showing people's actual names, and including any messages they left for instant playback. But it also had the steepest price: $40 a month, which wasn't all that much of an advantage over all-you-can-call plans from regular phone companies.

But AT&T has drastically dropped its price — a full 25 percent over the past months, now down to $30 a month — and triggered a ripple-down effect. Vonage dropped its own charges from $30 to $25, and Broadvox Direct's price plummeted from $30 to an incredible $20 a month.

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Vonage continued to operate during a hurricane in the Caribbean while all other services were out.