22 May 2007

SLOWLY but surely, Australia is crawling out of the broadband dark ages.

Politicians love to throw promises around, but some of them are
bound to stick eventually. For example, it's not unreasonable to expect
that, by and large, internet pipes will continue to get fatter as time
goes by (the speed at which this happens is the subject of another
debate, of course).

This means more than simply the ability to download files more
quickly. It opens up various doors, some of which make the telcos
nervous. One of the doors that's already wide open is internet
telephony, also known as voice over internet protocol.

Like any new technology, the initial uptake of VoIP has been fairly
slow, but now the technology is maturing and it's starting to gain
momentum.