The Problem with VoIP Phones

john dvorak has an interesting viewpoint on current voip services. although i have the impression that the quality of dsl & cable services is better on this side of the ocean, i'm not sure that he's wrong

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this month, there was a whole area dedicated to the various small-fry companies jumping into Voice over IP (VoIP) telephony—an area largely pioneered by Vonage—and offering all-you-can-phone service for $29.95 a month. A slew of telephone adapters modeled after the Cisco 186 has also appeared, making everything cheaper and cheaper. Offers of unlimited phone service for $9.95 are cropping up too, as is the re-emergence of computer-to-computer IP-to-IP phone systems. There are problems arising, though, because most people are still running on phone-company wires and we have a more and more flaky Internet.