the Future for VOIP

[kyron]

not technically with LLU. There a company call be. http://www.bethere.co.uk which is offering 24mb speeds under the local loop unbundling

[JamesLovett]

Dear All,

Knowing BTW as well as I do, the plan for 21cn by 2009 is optimistic.

I had a chat with a CISCO engineer who is taking part in the whole BT+CISCO VoIP Enterprise solution at an Expo not long ago and he agrees it is likely to take a loooong time to transfer the BT network to SIP back end.

As far as the earlier posts regarding VoIP replacing phones, I see this as unlikely. At the risk of getting too deep, civilisation still regards the physical phone as a necessity to all of our lives. The idea that this is removed and we all use softphones is something I don't believe our time of technological evolution is prepared to accept, despite it being physically possible.

The next big change we will all see is a consolidation of the landline phone to the mobile phone. The new Nokia 'e' range for example has WiFi capability. We are in the late stages of BETA testing the e60 on our Virtual PBX platform, unfortunately the likes of Orange and O2 are yet to catch up on the GSM platforms!! (It is supposed to be the other way round surely!)

Anyway when Orange, for example, release the Nokia e60 I will be upgrading via them. I will then provision two profiles, one being my mobile number and the other being an 0207 on the DEVIL7 platform. If I am in a WiFi hotspot, the office, home, starbucks or The Cloud I can choose to make and receive calls using my mobile number or my landline. I will set up a sales hunt group so that my mobile and desk phone ring simultaneously. Moving forward, I may not need my desk phone at all.

In summary then, the technology is very nearly here. I for one am very excited.

(sorry for blabbering on!)