In any event, 2005 no doubt will be a banner year for VoIP. Many industry pundits are making predictions as such - everything from VoIP company mergers/buyouts to IPOs to some unknown killer VoIP-app will happen in 2005.
This next event (February 22nd-25th) promises to be the largest VoIP event
ever. Rich Tehrani tells me the attendee pre-registration for this event
are already setting record numbers. The conference track for Internet
Telephony Conference & Expo is amazing this year with some really interesting
topics. Check out some of the topics the speakers will be covering:
- VoIP Peering
- Regulation & Taxation
- E-911
- UNE-P to VoIP
- VoIP Security
- Open Source Telephony <--- Probably my favorite topic
- Triple Play
- Session Border Controllers
- WiFi Telephony
- SIP Workshop
Rich told me he expects a record number of service providers at this show and
not surprisingly, a very sizable developer audience since this event has
certification classes in various VoIP genres. I'm hoping to see more open
source telephony solutions similar to the popular Asterisk IP-PBX.
There is a shift taking place in VoIP as the technology has proven itself in
the real world and now we must try to figure out where we go from here. Rich
calls this VoIP 2.0 - the next level of VoIP. This is an important concept
because entirely new industries are emerging to take advantage of the new
opportunities that VoIP provides.
For example, Skype, Popular Telephony and Nimcat Networks are just three
companies in the p2p VoIP space yet they are affecting the lives of tens of
millions of people. VoIP peering is a relatively new phenomenon and it has the
ability to reduce the cost of VoIP an order of magnitude from where it is today!
UNE-P rule changes are forcing service providers to scramble and become VoIP
providers. There is a great deal more to VoIP 2.0 and this event is the only one
that is focusing on the most important areas of VoIP growth.
I'll be at the event covering all the VoIP news that be announced at the show
and I'm sure there will be lots of it.