VoIP is a really hot discussion topic these days, but depending on who you're talking to, VoIP trul does mean something different to everyone. We hear people, or analysts, say VoIP isn't ready for prime time, or that it has security problems, but even the analysts are often unclear about which VoIP variant they're talking about. All this ambiguity leads to some large misconceptions and misunderstandings about the viability of VoIP as a service.

I thought it worthwhile to take a few minutes to lay out some of the variant forms of VoIP and where they seem to fit a user community or customer audience. Hopefully this will help point out that when someone talks about VoIP, you may need to ask questions to understand what VoIP flavor they're really speaking too.

VoIP as replacement dial tone - Two VoIP providers spring to mind, Vonage and Packet8. Some variations of these dial tone replacements services may be available through your ISP or cable company too. These services use VoIP to transport voice calls. They're really looking at simply replacing dial tone voice with a packetized variation that delivers comparable service. Pricing is often the differentiator, although at today's prices, that alone may not be sufficient enough a differentiator to make the services viable. There's often little convergence between voice and data services. VoIP is simply a transport tool for voice calls. We might think of this as a managed service - managed VoIP dialtone.

Consumer based IM with VoIP added - AIM, Yahoo and MSN all began as instant messaging tools. Now they all tout themselves as VoIP and incorporate some ability to trigger voice conversations. Googletalk spawned from Gmail is something of a hybrid VoIP client that allows voice conversations as well.

Computer based consumer VoIP - This is a huge and vocal market, filled with solutions that began in the roots of PC-to-PC voice calling. Skype, Gizmo, and Jajah, are good examples.

Consumer Solutions in Business - We find these tools (AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Skype, Gizmo, Jajah) also penetrating the workplace. This penetration is often driven, not by the business enterprise, but by end users. We users find tools that work, and they worm their way into our work environment, sometime unbeknownst to, and often unsupported by, our corporate employers.

Technologist and Hobbyist VoIP - For the innovator - These solutions are still evolving. In some cases they reach down into consumer solutions. In many cases, they reach up into business solutions. Open source tools make up part of this set. Asterisk is often viewed as the leader. but FreeSwitch and others provide solid VoIP toolsets. Technically advanced networks like FreeWorld Dialup bring features like network peering into play, and often remain a mystery to consumers, and a niche to larger business users.

Business VoIP solutions - These are wide-ranging, but we can visualize the market by looking at some core business solkution providers like Cisco, Nortel, Avaya, and the like. At the low end, many a simple Cisco Integrated Service Router can provide VoIP functionality. And the high end, networked Nortel or Avaya PBXs in an enterprise now use IP for trunking between systems and support VoIP endpoints. These aren't the only players by any means, but they represent a set of widely recognized names who provide well-crafted  solutions.

Carrier grade solutions, used by the telcos, and by companies like Vonage or Packet8 also play into the enterprise in many ways.
 These solutions have evolved for many years. The IP backbone transport of packetized voice traffic has been widely adpoted for a very long time. ATM backbones carries voice traffic in ATM cells, but these have, for years, been evolving into transport networks for vocie traffic using tools like MPLS for Quality of Service assurances.

Quality and Security
These are two facets of VoIP that get a lot of attention.

Security is a defensive layer that is added on to a network service. A consumer using MSN or Skype cannot expect the same caliber security as one using a private enterprise network. Each solutions brings it's own strengths and weaknesses.

Quality of service is much the same. An enterprise network, designed to carry VoIP traffic, can perform flawlessly. A consuer VoIP solutions running over a DSL line at home, while your fanliy downloads streaming video in the other room, will provide a much different quality of service.

It's important to compare apples to apples when reviewing VoIP solutions. Listening to a Skype or Gizmo conversation, or podcast recorded from those environments, often assure that you're hearing a residential quality, consumer supporting solution. To then assume that "VoIP has poor quality and isn't suitable for business" means you have overlooked a true business-caliber system designed to properly support VoIP. A well-engineered solution will indeed include layers of security and quality assurances that are just not available with consumer products.

Don't mix apples and oranges when you're talking about VoIP. If you do, you risk overlooking the right solution for your business needs and stereotyping VoIP in a way that will leave you technologically behind the curve as the technology evolves and penetrates our everyday life.