Internet telephony, by some measures, is now 15 years old. In the last 15 years, it has emerged from academic and commercial laboratories to become the mainstream method of communications today. The success of Internet telephony applications has demonstrated the feasibility of IP communications to support millions of concurrent users. What started initially as a technology for toll-bypass in the switched telephone network has now grown to subsume the switched telephone network. However, creating scalable innovative services for Internet telephony in a rapid manner is still a work in progress.
The web service creation model served as an initial model of creating services in Internet telephony and, to a great extent, still continues in the same role. As web mashups proliferated, voice mashups gained currency; as RSS feeds lead to innovative web services, the voice market capitalized with voice-enabled RSS feeds. Added to this mix are more recent technological advances such as virtualization, virtual worlds, IMS and mobile technologies, and capable personal digital assistants -- all enabling a variety of new communication protocols, services and architectures.

Cite: John F. Buford, Vijay K. Gurbani, and Anand R. Prasad, "Special Issue on IP Communication Services," Journal of Communications, vol. 7, no.2, pp. 87-88, 2012. Doi: 10.4304/jcm.7.2.87-88