Too Much of a Good Thing?: Last year was a year of great strides in VOIP, both technically speaking and politically also.

At the beginning of last year I suggested that mortgage company call centers and customer service operations might be in store for some big savings by considering switching their phone systems to new VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) services. Last year saw strides in VOIP, both technically and politically.

This is the year VOIP will begin transforming the business, providing business telecom services and cutting your communication costs significantly.

A convergence of events, while unfortunate for many over the past three years, have morphed into a huge opportunity for businesses, an opportunity to move some big bucks straight to their bottom lines. And, unlike many past opportunities that benefited only large volume consumers, this time the little guys will benefit as well, especially "SOHOs" - small-office and home-office enterprises.

How did the doom and gloom of the dot-com crash mutate into something so pregnant with opportunity and promise? To understand this bright future, we first have to step back into the recent past.

While I lost my…