This article from yesterday cannot go unmentioned....

BBC NEWS | Business | Nokia launching net call handsets
Nokia is introducing new mobile phone handsets that will enable users to make calls over the Internet.

Nokia putting VIOP on a mobile phone marks a significant shift on communication & the Internet. Skype were the 1st people to try and offer consumers or "Joe public" voip phones for home use, it's not that the technology is new, cisco & avaya have been offering businesses the technology for years, it's just that it wasn't quite right for the market at large.

Where skype are failing, nokia will succeed, why ? Because people already own, buy and are familiar with the product "Joe public" can walk into any CarPhoneWareHouse and buy a mobile phone & if the new model comes with free* Internet phone calls then of course they'll pick it.

So what does that mean to us, the professionals who work in networking and security ? Well networking will change, specifically wireless, more people will need access to WI-FI lans, so the bandwidth will need to increase, security of these lans will change, laptops and pdas will need authentication, but phone access will need to be simple. Security as a whole will change, it's the windows syndrome again, people buy windows for home PC's because that's what they're used to at work, and when they are at work they choose windows solutions because that's what they have the most exposure to, since in their home pc's run windows :D ... sorry where was I.... yes, People will start to have VOIP on their mobile phones, so they'll look at VOIP for their business solutions; and users will see VOIP IP PHONE printed on their desk phone, so when offered voip on their mobile they'll consider buying it.

The shift to VOIP effects security, because now a single data network is responsible for the full communication of a business; what if their local call manager connects to an external provider, now their firewall is responsible for passing e-mail and voice communications (not to mention any other data)... all of a sudden the network infrastructure and the security implementation is solely responsible for comm's where as before we all had the security blanket of if the Internet/e-mail/network fails we can all pick up the phone !

I guess this means the future is going to be bright, more wireless bandwidth for more VOIP communications running on a single network infrastructure with increased security awareness is a significant evolution, and hey, with the whole web2.0 thing pushing the hype along nicely we should all hopefully be in jobs for the next few years ;)

* All free's come with conditions, so it probably won't actually be free, but you know the marketing will say it is.