How are you with new digital technology? Are you like myself. I get the children to program the Sky or DVD recorder. They are very technically 'savvy'. It seems almost second nature to them whereas we tend to shy off and take the easy out when we can. The new technological 'boom' can get us in a spin. There are so many things to have to learn and then - all change again.



A business looking at adopting a new technology can be much the same. A wrong decision or choice can prove costly. Faced with all the technological wizardry of today can be a confusing and difficult path to go down. Okay, so there are plenty of experts out there. But, should it go 'pear shaped' the 'buck' stops with you. Your the one 'under fire'. So faced with this bewildering array, such as which telephone system or service to adopt is a decision very often put off by management.

Additionally off-putting are the staggering and very expensive mistakes we read about by government agencies who seem to get sucked into spending vast fortunes and buying into massive and problematic technological ?headaches'. Then there are some of the scare stories and miss information out there to put us off ? indeed give us the excuse to just stay with the status quo.

Having said the above ? finally the business world is awakening to the new and improved VoIP being pioneered out there. VoIP is really coming of age. Not only is this happening but there is an awakening to the massive savings in communication costs to be had.

So what is VoIP? This is short for Voice over Internet Protocol. VoIP is the technology that enables voice transmissions over what normally would be used for data transmissions. So now you can transmit your voice using data ?packets' for your business communications. This system converts your voice into digital 'packages' which are moved along to another destination by a data network.

Every one of us uses VoIP without even realising it. The VoIP technology is now at a stage where the large telecommunications companies have made it the backbone of their communications industry. So although you may initiate a normal voice call on your phone it will at come stage be converted into VoIP and back again. This is great for the telecommunications companies but you are left with the same old high costs to pay as always. So what is needed is the means to initiate a VoIP call from the ?off' as it were. This is now happening at a tremendous pace across the world. It gathers speed as the new technology is becoming available ? and reliable ? in a more mobile way than ever before.

This has reached the stage where an employee fore instance in the UK can call his company office on Canada on his quite basic mobile phone. Yes, without any special internet connection. Not only is he able to do this but the cost is removed from the normal service provider to a VoIP service that is extremely low cost. So low it's hardly worth a worry about. Now this is what we call ? real progress.

To give you some idea of VoIP growth have a look at there figures to follow that I have picked out of various reports.

Swedish users jumped to 410,000 in 2006 from just 219,500 the year before. Almost double in a year. Yet still only 4.5% are using VoIP.

In Scotland 19% of adults now have VoIP connections leading England which has 18% connected. However, in some English regions such as London it jumps to 21% making VoIP calls.

Both Spain and Italian markets are fairly booming with VoIP markets expanding whilst normal fixed line transmissions are declining. These markets are huge. We are talking of markets worth 10's of billions in any main currency such as the Euro GB? or US$ in any one country.

In the UK a new survey has shown that the VoIP market amongst small businesses will double in just one year. Currently around 25% it will be 48% within the year. Add to this the following report that states: 57% of companies with less than two to ten employees and 48% of sole traders are planning to use VoIP in the next 12 months, compared to 20% of companies with 31 to 50 employees.

Last year alone the number of subscribers to VoIP went from 19 million to 40 million. This trend is set to grow ever faster.

What conclusions can we come to with just these few statistics? The fear of the unknown is fading fast. The newer patent pending VoIP services are pioneering new and advanced methods of service, freeing up the VoIP from fixed computer (which was always problematic with ?gap' times) to being mobile in this fast and demanding world.

If you have not as yet taken up VoIP as your main communication means then please contact me and I can advise you on what is the very latest and most mobile VoIP at this time.