America Discovers New Ways to Communicate - Voice Over Internet Protocol (voip)

Another type of Internet communications technology emerging in the early years of the twenty-first century is voice over Internet protocol (VoIP). VoIP is an application that allows the user to make phone calls over the Internet. The user attaches the phone to an adapter that sits between the phone and the computer. When a call is in progress, the adapter breaks down the voice stream into data packets that can then be routed over the Internet just like e-mail to their destination. (Regular phone conversations typically travel as streams of continuous data over a dedicated phone line that connects two people directly.) If the person on the other end of the call is also equipped with VoIP, then the entire conversation is treated by the Internet as nothing more than an instant message or an e-mail. If the person using VoIP, however, dials to a traditional phone, then the call must be converted into a continuous voice stream by a telecom company before the call reaches its destination.

VoIP is likely to become a technology that gains wide acceptance with little fanfare. In "Talk Becomes Cheap" (Popular Science, August 2004), Nicole Davis stated that four million people worldwide are already making calls on VoIP. According to a June 2004 Pew/Internet and New Millennium Research Council data memo, technology research firm Gartner Inc. reported that 150,000 Americans subscribed to VoIP in 2003. This number would grow to one million by the end of 2004 and reach six million by 2005. The same Pew/Internet memo revealed that approximately thirty-four million people (17% of all Americans) had heard of VoIP, and nearly fourteen million Americans had used VoIP at some point in their lives.

According to Davis in Popular Science, VoIP will have to overcome a few obstacles in order to become mainstream. Most important, the user of the service is required to have broadband, which as of late 2004 was installed in roughly only 30% of American homes. Second, not all telecommunications companies have installed gateways to convert VoIP to voice stream and back again on all their phone systems, so some normal phones with local area codes cannot take VoIP calls. Not all providers accept 911 calls over VoIP either. Finally, VoIP shuts down when the power dies, which could prove disastrous in a hurricane, earthquake, or other massive power outage.

TABLE 2.5

Instant messaging (IM) users by selected characteristics, May–June 2004
	The percent of internet users in each group who are IM users (e.g. 42% of online men are IM users)	The proportion of the IM population each group makes up (e.g. 50% of all IM-ers are men)
N = 1,399. The percentages in the right column do not at times add up to 100 because of rounding.
SOURCE: "Who Uses Instant Messaging," in How Americans Use Instant Messaging, Pew Internet and American Life Project, September 1, 2004, http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Instantmessage_Report.pdf (accessed October 25, 2004). Used by permission of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which bears no responsibility for the interpretations presented or conclusions reached based on analysis of the data.
Men	42%	50%
Women	42%	50
Race/ethnicity
Whites	41%	73%
Blacks	44	8
Hispanics	52	9
Other	40	10
Age
Gen Y (ages 18–27)	62%	31%
Gen X (ages 28–39)	37	28
Trailing boomers (ages 40–49)	33	20
Leading boomers (ages 50–58)	29	12
Matures (ages 59–68)	25	7
After work (age 69+)	29	3
Household income
Less than $30,000	53%	31%
$30,000–$50,000	42	24
$50,000–$75,000	36	19
$75,000+	39	27
Educational attainment
Did not graduate from HS	49%	8%
High school grad	44	31
Some college	48	32
College degree +	34	29
Community type
Urban	45%	30%
Suburban	42	49
Rural	40	21
Type of internet connection at home
Broadband	46%	41%
Dialup	39	59