VoIP industry

“VoIP is dead,” Skype General Manager of Voice and Video Jonathan Christensen declared at an industry conference a few weeks ago. He spoke figuratively, of course, but he may well have been right. While Voice-Over-Internet Protocol proponents had long promised a decade of creative destruction, they themselves appear to have become the victims.

According to research firm TeleGeography, at year-end 2007 there were 25.3 million consumer VoIP lines were in service in Western Europe, up 69% from 15 million in 2006. There were 6.5 million VoIP subscribers in 2005. That number is going to top 37 million by end of 2008, nearly 29% of the total fixed lines in Western Europe.

Shifting from the virtual space to the physical space, in any capacity, is a big decision. Thanks to advances made in the VoIP industry, it’s easier to make phone calls using a broadband connection and a computer microphone. BeeMask is a new company that wants to take things a step beyond VoIP and connect people via their regular mobile or land lines, without revealing any personal information.