I was reading a time magazine article the other day and found that there is a thing called skype phones that was sweeping the internet. The two guys who started it sold their website to ebay and are now very rich because of it. What am I talking about? It is called voip or voice over internet protocal. It is not a new idea, making long distance calls over the internet for free, the rational being that the internet connections are done through local servers. They basically created a way to make free phone calls around the world with just a microphone and a speaker and some free downloadable software.

The implications are obvious, the first being that if you can connect a video phone to it, you can talk and see just about anyone anywhere in the world. There is a drawback, however, and that is that it is most easily used over a broad band connection. The bandwidth of video just does not justify clarity over a 56 k modem.

So I went on Ebay and guess what, they are selling skype phones already. I guess it's been around for about a year already but it's catching on fast. Some of the commercial phone companies are already offering voip phone service. I guess the question remains is it commercially viable. Will it take on the internet by storm, or is it just a passing fad.

My guess is that it is still in its infancy and inevitably will go through a phase where a lot of different companies will come up with different ways to do this. Then inevitably the feds will come in and regulate it. I guess they're charging to make phone calls to cell phones and local regular phones, and that's called skyping out,etc.

I always wandered when they will come up with an idea like solar powered video phones that will connect to anyone in the world. Skype comes pretty close, except that it will be eventually typified as an internet phone service, ready to take that next step of video conferencing which gained a lot of attention years ago.

My opinion is that audio and video over the internet, especially over a broadband connection will gain popularity. Much like cell phone is pretty common these days, but this is mostly for the internet connoseurs, I fear and could be just a passing fad although the commericial implications are there.

But one thing for sure, it's not just hype they're talking about, and it remains to be seen if the general public will catch on. We'll see in the next few years.