VoIP Evolution

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.

Ribbit Mobile No Google Voice Clone

The most common reaction to the newly introduced Ribbit Mobile service is that it's a Google Voice competitor. In some ways that's true, but there are significant differences between the two. The main one is that Ribbit Mobile makes one's existing mobile number the main number, while Google Voice hangs all its services on a new number it provides. For most users, one approach will be clearly better than the other.

My1voice Business Phone Service Starts at $10 per Month

In the current recession, a lot of people are starting businesses not because they want to but because they have no jobs. For such individuals, saving money while appearing professional is crucial. A new hosted service called my1voice, offered by Ottawa-based Protus, will help them do that. It provides a business number and office phone features starting at $10 per month. Companies can have incoming calls forwarded anywhere, to any number of employees.