VOIP is still immature
It’s interesting how VOIP is such a hot topic and yet how immature it is in terms of the slickness of its configuration. Many years ago setting up broadband connectivity at home with a fixed IP and an associated domain or domains, a firewall, NAT, DHCP, ADSL, PPP, etc. was a task for the dedicated systems administrator. Now you can buy a box with all of that built in for only a few pounds, indeed most broadband suppliers give them away to their new customers. And, configuration is easy: user-name, password and your providers domain - and all of the other settings are either handed off or have sensible defaults pre-set in the device. VOIP is not like this at all - yet. In a couple of years we’ll all be buying our ADSL wireless routers with our phone and configuration for VOIP will be as simple as ADSL is now.