The Top 25 VoIP Advances of 2009

There were more advances than true innovations in the VoIP world in 2009. That's because some of the most important developments had more to do with commercial and political maneuvers than with technical creativity. Still, such maneuvers often helped spread the benefits of VoIP as much as did technical innovation. And collectively, the advances brought some already-evident trends into clearer focus. A key such trend is the increasing integration of voice with other applications and services. Another is the intensifying interest in HD voice. A third is the growing interconnection of VoIP services, in part in response to the possibilities that end-to-end HD voice offers. With such trends as background, here, in no particular order, are our top 25 VoIP advances of 2009.

Nimbuzz First Customer for GIPS Android HD Codec

The most widely recognized obstacle to mobile VoIP running over cellular data networks is carriers' opposition. Mobile operators don't want to allow services that compete with their lucrative voice minutes businesses to run over their networks, because it means all they'll get paid for is transporting the bits carrying the voice, a far less lucrative business. A less-known obstacle to the service is call quality concerns. Regular voice calls can sound bad enough, but delivering them over a data network not designed with real-time services like voice in mind. A Global IP Solutions (GIPS) answer to the latter problem is now available for Android users.

In Network Neutrality War, AT&T vs. Google Sounds Like Republicans vs. Democrats

So it's now official: network neutrality is about Republicans versus Democrats. Evidence of the parallel was plentiful leading up to the FCC's recent notice of proposed rulemaking, when many public statements on the subject sounded like partisan rhetoric. But AT&T's September 25 letter to the FCC attacking Google provided the most convincing proof: it amounted to a character assault worthy of a presidential campaign. And a subsequent op-ed piece in the Washington Examiner made clear, if it wasn't already, which sides the high-tech combatants were on.

AT&T Call Blocking Attack Reveals Google Voice Structural Problem

AT&T's recent letter to the FCC about Google Voice was obviously disingenuous. It tried to link network neutrality, a key Google crusade, with Google Voice's blocking of certain calls. In reality, there was little connection except the politics involved: The real goal of the communication was to paint AT&T as on the side of network openness, and Google as on the opposite side. But the letter did inadvertently bring to light a potentially major weakness in the Google Voice model: the fact that the free service has to pay to have its users' calls delivered to their destinations on the PSTN (public switched telephone network).

Mobile VoIP Will Be FCC Net Neutrality Flash Point

The most heated battles over FCC chairman Julius Genachowski's new network neutrality proposal will involve its impact on wireless providers. Network neutrality attempts to ensure that Internet providers treat all traffic equally. Traditional landline-based providers have done so from the start, and the chairman's proposal merely aims to make sure they continue to do so. But wireless Internet providers have done just the opposite from the start. Thus the proposal, if enacted, would force them to change their businesses completely. And the biggest reason they will oppose that change is mobile VoIP.