Communications have changed drastically over the last thirty years, making the industry and technology today almost unrecognizable from what existed at that time. If you're too young to remember, consider this: even as recently as the mid 1980's, an answering machine was still a relatively new technology, meaning that most of the time, if you wanted to reach someone, and they weren't home, you simply didn't get to reach them, and maybe you got to leave a message. These days, deep in the digital age, everyone and their mother has a cell phone and is almost constantly online or somewhere they have easy internet access. People are so connected to each other in such a historically unprecedented way, it has changed the social dynamic completely. Far from "hoping we can get a hold of someone," it is now abnormal to NOT be able to contact someone for any sort of extended length of time.

Part of this communications revolution is a technology which has been a long time in the making. Since the very beginnings of the internet, people have been using it to communicate, and there has always been the idea out there that the internet could be used to actually make telephone calls, which would revolutionize the telephone industry and allow free domestic and international calling all the time. This technology went through several incarnations, but it wasn't until the advent of widespread broadband internet access that this really became possible for everyday people. Thanks to the proliferation of that technology, these days, we have VOIP internet telephone.

VOIP is an acronym for Voice Over Internet Protocol, meaning that rather than sending voice communications over a normal telephone network, we're now sending voice communications via IP, the same way we send content on the internet. As was mentioned above, the idea for this technology has been in place for a long time, and many of the earlier versions of VOIP internet telephone were simply unreliable, ineffective, or just plain poor. This has lead many to distrust the idea of VOIP internet telephone, but those who have tried it in the past would be amazed at the quality of calls being placed over the internet today. With innovations like video phones and the tremendous cost savings, especially with international calls, VOIP is definitely growing bigger.

There are three different types of VOIP internet telephone out there when we talk about the consumer market. You can get an adapter for your traditionally telephone which will simply connect the phone to your internet connection rather than to your standard phone connection. This is known as an Analog Telephone Adapter and is a way to use VOIP internet telephone in your own home. If you're on the go, VOIP mobile phones are also available. By connecting to WiFi or 3G mobile internet networks, these phones, usually in conjunction with a standard mobile service plan, can make VOIP calls to standard phones, to computers, and to other VOIP phones. One such phone, manufactured in conjunction with VOIP pioneer company Skype, was pioneered in Europe just a few years ago, but the phone was never released in the US. Thirdly, there is the software option which requires no phone, but simply uses a software to turn your computer into a VOIP communication device. This service, usually just called software-based VOIP is a re-envisioning of the original concept of VOIP, and with added devices like web cams, can do high speed video chat all over the world. Services like Skype have been on the forefront of this technology, along with companies like Apple and Microsoft which each have a similar technology.

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