Right now, Internet phone calls are typically made on a computer, using a special headset or on a phone with a special adaptor. Increasingly, they can also be made over mobile phones, using Wi-Fi technology. ually, the companies say, they will be available on all devices, from televisions to iPods to appliances like refrigerators. The idea is that screens and voice technology will be everywhere, bringing your calls to you wherever you happen to be. And the old notion that a phone number is linked to a specific place is about to disappear. Already, someone in Mumbai can purchase a number with a Manhattan area code and carry it with him wherever he goes. Road warriors can get local, rather than long-distance, dialing rates by calls with their laptops. The Internet is free, and the technologies it is based on are open. That also makes it easier and cheaper for the new telephone companies to offer expanded features. Voice greetings could be customized to each caller, and a different ringtone could flag each member of the family. Bars and clubs could be equipped with a device at the door that finds your likely match in a computer database and automatically places a call to your potential sweetheart. Like a broadband connection, an Internet phone is always on. For s, that means mobile phones that allow endless chats with several friends at the same time, or an open hot line to Mom and Dad. "VoIP will mean the end of picking up a phone, talking and then hanging up," Says Paul Saffo, director of the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, Calif. Which of these features comes to pass, though, is anybody’s guess.
Experts say VoIP will make the old idea of digital convergence a reality, blurring lines between telecoms, cable, computers and consumer electronics. The race among firms like Samsung, Sony and Apple to invent the next killer apps for consumers will grow more anarchic. And ysts are already speculating about the bizarre merger possibilities: Microsoft, Sony or Google buying a telephone company In a speech late last year, FCC chairman Michael Powell described the Internet phone call as a "revolution" with "profound implications" for the telecom industry, and called for a "new constitution for the regulation of such services, one befitting that revolution." Shortly after that speech, to the delight of Vonage and other upstarts, the FCC announced that VoIP would be regulated like the Internet (that is, lightly) rather than like the rules-heavy old phone system.
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