Jon Oltsik has an interesting article up on CNET News about the current state of the VoIP “revolution.” He correctly points out some of the limitations that currently exist with VoIP service, which suggest that rumors of the demise of the PSTN are greatly exaggerated.
“We all complain about ‘Ma Bell,’ but land-based dial tone almost always works. No one worries about voice quality or power–it just happens. Not so with VoIP. Network convergence has been a sexy topic for 10 years, but the fact is that most corporate networks were designed to simply pass data packets around willy-nilly, not guarantee carrier-quality voice service.”
As with most things, its all about keeping the proper perspective.