Hunter Newby has done a great job on his VoIP peering column in Internet Telephony Magazine. The article is so good I want to make sure you take a look at some of it. Be sure to keep reading Internet Telephony Magazine to ensure you read this and other great columns from Hunter, Greg Galitzine and others:

It is quickly becoming widely understood that voice as VoIP is just another application like email. It's a no-brainer, yesterday's news, right? Not such a no-brainer a few years ago though. So, what makes video any different? If the differences in the protocols and compression, etc such as G.711 verses MPEG4 are set aside, nothing is different but the bandwidth requirements. Video is just another application as well. IP is peered, VoIP is peered and video is next.

Video peering is the wild-west, the great white canvas and just as ENUM within VoIP Peering is disrupting the economics of the traditional voice business model the mere capability of a globally distributed IP network openly carrying video feeds, clips and feature-length films poses real threats to broadcast television as well as the cable companies. It's no wonder that the RBOC's are racing with pinpoint accuracy in to IPTV. Don't be surprised when they all begin to peer with each other to deliver video content – not that they're moving anywhere near as fast with VoIP Peering and ENUM. Knowing the players, their vantage point, the revenue models they must protect and the ones they must attack sheds a whole lot of light on their motivation and the pace of both applications.

VoIP as just another application trivializes and compartmentalizes an entire industry that for 100+ years employed and fed hundreds of thousands of people. Such is life, such is evolution. VoIP is becoming a component of every type of IP interaction imaginable, starting with online reservations and heading straight in to the audio component of a full-duplex video session. Just when you thought the rate per minute couldn't go any lower in came flat rate voice. It doesn't end there. Now voice as audio is just another component of video like color verses black and white. When you watch TV you don't have to pay extra for sound... Subscribe here.

Also see Hunter at the VoIP Peering Summit at Internet Telephony Conference & Expo in a few weeks.