VOIP offers Cost Reduction and useful extra Features (over fixed line comms) - but quality and usability still have a way to go.

Marketers could soon find that VoIP overtakes more traditional forms of communication, it has been suggested.

Hydrapinion, a technology news blog, indicated that landline and mobile networks alike may suffer at the hands of this emerging technology.

However, the site believes that the speed of its implementation will be determined by how quickly smartphones take up VoIP applications.

In his personal blog, technology journalist for the website Ian Grayson suggested that VoIP could well prove to be a more cost-effective means of keeping in touch.

He indicated that he had been a user of the service and found it to be a cost-effective and flexible form of communication.

"Mobile VoIP quality was often patchy and the log-in requirements needed to access many public Wi-Fi networks meant it was often just easier to make calls in the regular way," he commented.

However, standards are starting to improve as the cost of using mobile data falls and therefore becomes more appealing to the masses.

He referred to the comments of David Keane, a representative of Big Tin Can, who predicted that traditional communications will be shunned over the next 12 months in favour of mobile data.

Source 8el