VoIP convergence highlighted

More VoIP services are beginning to offer solutions which can make use of traditional landlines as well as internet voice calls, an analyst has highlighted.

Tech news writer Iain Thompson examined the business benefits of these converged services in an article for IT Week.

"We are increasingly seeing telephones that can make calls in the traditional fashion when needed, but also use the internet when it's cheaper or more convenient," he said.

"Such combination phones give consumers a genuine choice over where they buy their services, not just at contract renewal time but every time they make a call."

Mr Thompson added that the continued growth of these IP telephony services may mean that using legacy systems which link to just one provider "may seem quaint" in the future.

This follows predictions from Disruptive Analysis that VoIP's biggest area of growth over the next few years will not be in home phone systems but in the mobile market, with 250 million people forecast to be using VoIP over 3G services by 2012.