What is the market for VoIP?
The size of the VON conference shows that vendors expect a big market in VoIP. And I think they’ll make a good living (if they can deliver the promises in the previous section) selling equipment and services to enterprises looking for savings in efficiency and administration of phone services. But there are also service providers at VON who expect to make big bucks offering it as a service, which I think will be much harder. Most worrisome is governments that think they will make money off of VoIP. They’re used to getting fees paid by phone users, and several speakers at the VON conference suggested they’re grasping at VoIP to close budget gaps. However, internet applications don’t generate revenue. I don’t know of anyone who made money simply offering email or web browsing. And VoIP will eventually be no different. Revenue comes from the transport, from offering connectivity. Jeff Pulver warned about this in his keynote: there is not necessarily a one-to-one relationship between a goa
