chnology has been around for several years but has SO far failed to live up to its potential. Still, a study by Parks Associates, a technology research firm located in Dallas, Texas, finds that one- half of all Internet households are interested in VoIP services, which could deprive current long-distance companies of their most profitable subscribers. Interest in these services is disproportionately high among subscribers with oppressive monthly phone bills, with cost savings being the primary driver. Furthermore, according to Parks' research, interest in VoIP service is consis- tent among both broadband (52 percent) and narrowband (48 percent) house- Telecosmos: The Next Great Telecom Revolution, edited by John Edwards ISBN 0-471-65533-3 Copyright © 2005 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. VolP TELEPHONY holds. "Consumers are looking at VoIP service as a replacement for their primary phone line, not as a secondary backup," says John Barrett, a research analyst at Parks. "VoIP could also serve as a lure for new broadband sub- scribers, given the strong interest among narrowband households. The market is still searching for a 'killer' broadband application. Wouldn't it be ironic if it turned out to be telephone service?" Preconceived notions helped diminish VoIP's consumer potential. "When people think of consumer IP telephony, they often think of sound quality equal to two cans tied together with string or as a dot.com fad," says Daryl Schoolar, a senior analyst with In-Stat/MDR, a technology research firm based in Scottsdale, Arizona. Still, although VoIP has been slow to gain traction with consumers, the tech- nology is getting a second chance at life with enterprise adopters. In its enter- prise incarnation, VoIP is experiencing solid growth. Probe Group, a telecom research company located in Cedar Knolls, New Jersey, forecasts that business-related IP voice services will experience geometric-level growth over the next several years. "While some of this growth will be derived from gradual increases in revenue per custo