Jonathan Christensen, general manager of audio and video at Skype, asked a provocative question at Internet Telephony Conference & Expo in Los Angeles: Is VoIP dead?

Michael Dinan, TMCnet Editor, quotes Christensen:

"VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) had a very significant role to play in the industry."

Christensen said that VoIP made distance irrelevant and eroded geographic numbering plans.

He noted that "unbundling" of access, devices and applications is steering voice technologies in an unexpected direction, making them less important communications innovations than some others.
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He said that instant messaging is particularly a big deal, leading "presence," a feature used to determine if someone is online or offline as well as chat.

Christensen told 200 attendees that Skype "closed the loop" for a new way of communicating, combining IM, voice, video and more.

Now, Christensen said, are emerging three pillars of a generation "beyond VoIP."

Dinan reports:

"The first pillar, he said, includes different facets, including the fact that - unlike analog telephone conversations - services such as Skype are marked by an 'explicit handshake model,' or agreed relationship, where both or all parties have agreed to communicate (a nice idea although this presidential election year will feature no robocalls, courtesy of Congress). Secondly, he said, there's a new band of audio, including wideband audio, improving communications, in part, by allowing participants to distinguish among different speakers. Finally, higher resolution video makes video conferencing such as that offered by Skype, more real.

"Some challenges loom in terms of packet loss and jitter, slow broadband deployment and some network neutrality issues - as well as hindrances in services such as Skype working consistently well over mobile devices."

So VoIP isn't dead, just evolving and changing.