The VoIP providers announced that they created together a group in order to promote the Internet telephony.

EarthLink, Google, Pulver.com, Sonus Networks and Skype announced their coallition named Internet Voice Campaign which is a part of the VON Coalition.
Voice over Internet Protocol (also called VoIP, IP Telephony, Internet telephony, and Digital Phone) is the routing of voice conversations over the Internet or any other IP-based network. The voice data flows over a general-purpose packet-switched network, instead of traditional dedicated, circuit-switched voice transmission lines. Protocols used to carry voice signals over the IP network are commonly referred to as Voice over IP or VoIP protocols. They may be viewed as commercial realizations of the experimental Network Voice Protocol (1973) invented for the ARPANET. Voice over IP traffic may be deployed on any IP network, including ones lacking a connection to the rest of the Internet, for instance on a private building-wide LAN.

Statistics revealed that almost 3 VoIP has almost 3 million users today. Until 2009 the number of users will be nine times bigger. Unfortunately many people are not aware of the technology and its benefits yet.

Some concerns about VoIP are related to support issues, security, power and network failure and quality also, according to an IDC report.

“Voice over IP has the potential to revolutionize the way we all communicate, providing high-quality, low-cost alternatives to traditional phone lines,” Steve Howe, vice president of voice at EarthLink, said in a statement. “With this collaboration, we are declaring: The time for Internet voice is now, and consumers need to know the benefits and innovative services that voice over IP can provide.”