WSJ Roundup of New VoIP Phones

The Wall Street Journal (sub. req'd) has a piece today about the mainstreaming of VoIP through handsets that look and act like traditional cordless phones:

A slew of new phones are heading to stores aimed at the millions of people who might like to try Internet calling but are put off by the prospect of sitting at a computer to make calls or hooking a phone to an adapter.

Some of the new phones from makers like Panasonic, Motorola Inc. and Uniden America Corp. have built-in adapters and are preset to connect to popular Internet-calling services like Vonage and Skype. They communicate cordlessly with a base station that's plugged into a computer or modem. Other devices will be able to shuttle automatically between operating as cellphones, cordless home phones or phones capable of working over the wireless Internet connections at many coffee shops and hotels.

As VoIP become less like technology and more about just making cheaper calls—when you add Wi-Fi-enabled phones there's additional incentive—it becomes an increasingly mainstream phenomenon.

We wrote about VoIP and its implications last year. The expanding VoIP universe will be on the agenda at Drilling Down '06.