Home phones face uncertain future

BBC NEWS Technology is running a report on the latrest research from Nokia on mobile phones replacing fixed residential lines. The only time that people are using their Home phone is for when they intend to have a longer call, with mobiles used for shorter calls.

Whilst this is interesting what is more so is the fact that last nights newsnight (also on the BBC) had a short feature on VoIP with the head of BT Retail as well as the Founder of Skype explaining how very soon all calls would be vertually free thanks to new technology. Whilst a very basic primer from there Business Correspondent it was a usefull wake-up call for all those middle class new kunkies who cannot sleep on a Friday night!

Having worked with VoIP as my telephone service for the last 18 months I do see that potentially we could all become users but I don't see the fast take-up spoken of by BT. I think that VoIP could become the same replacement of traditional communications that the FAX was in relation to the Stamp. Some will use it but many others are happy with the current system and thus unlikely to change just for the sake of a few pennies saved on calls.

Just a thought but somehow I think that we are not going to see the brave new world for quite sometime, just look at the speed that 3G has been started for more evidence.