Verizon embraces VoIP future

Verizon Communications always seemed less enthusiastic about exploring the potential of VoIP than fellow big telco AT&T (and instead more interested in suing VoIP companies), but that has changed recently. The company has said it plans to launch FiOS Digital Voice this year, and last week, while everyone was checking about the Palm Pre and 3-D TVs at CES 2009, Verizon told the Los Angeles Times that it plans for all of its voice calling to be VoIP-based in seven years. Landline loss and broadband expansion have finally crossed a line for Verizon that only five years ago many people probably expected was decades away. Telco transformations aren't going to win any Best of Show awards or second glances from the gadget crowd at an event like CES, but Verizon's admission once would have been unthinkable, and it represents entrance into a new age.

For more:
- The Los Angeles Times has this report [1]

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