As for IPOs, Pulver predicted there should be some pure VoIP IPOs this year, and he mentioned Vonage Holdings, the leading independent VoIP provider. "And there are others on the sidelines," he said. "Everyone's waiting for them to pop."
Several large VoIP providers " including major telecommunications companies like AT&T and Verizon Communications " have publicly-traded stocks and have begun to offer Internet telephoning. Pulver noted that British-based VoIP provider Newport Networks has launched a successful IPO.
"Governments around the world will look harder at VoIP regulation and service providers will respond by stepping up their efforts to deploy industry-based solutions for many of the social issues confronting the industry," he predicted, noting that the industry needs to
address the issues of emergency response (911 availability) and lawful intercept (by law enforcement agencies.
In the U.S. he believes battle lines between advocates of VoIP and its opponents will be sharply drawn as Congress moves towards rewriting the Telecommunications Act of 1996. He said: "We will find out who our friends are and who has just been paying us lip-service."
He believes the FCC will issue an order establishing "a broad hands-off approach for VoIP," although he predicts the FCC will not establish a special bureau for IP communications.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
