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And what about the role of the PC in VoIP alternatives?
What does the PC have to do with my phone?
The PC seems nothing like a phone but today there are a myriad of options for using your PC as a phone. These service offers typically employ a softphone, or software running in your PC. This soft phone executes the same functions as a desktop IP phone. It may employ an open standard SIP (Session Initiation Protocol)
Skype has been getting lots of buzz recently, but, like Vonage in broadband telephone service, there are many entrants. Every major portal service provider has a telephone option, for both PC-to-PC and a terminating service at reduced rates. Yahoo, AOL, MSN, and Google are most visible but there are many others, especially SP-based solutions that may interoperate on the same network as the broadband phone options.
Users typically start with a microphone and speaker arrangement and new versions of softphones work quite well if you arrange the microphone and speaker well. A headset greatly reduces any acoustic coupling and is usually highly recommended. Various adapter devices (including from TeleVoce partners) add convenience such as enabling a standard telephone to be used, and even allow for a single phone to work on both a regular phone line and the PC application.
While this seems somewhat a complication, it opens a new world. First the PC connects to other PCs at no added cost, and it can offer higher quality voice than a telephone. Conferencing is often available and Skype in particular does this very well. You can see that free conference calls among family or business associates can be very compelling. Because the PC is an open platform you can expect that most innovations will be first seen at the PC, even years before they will be elsewhere.