The VoIP sector suffered an existential crisis this week, with many in the industry debating whether the technology was alive, dead, or on life support. Former Microsoft manager Alec Saunders declared that VoIP was dead. Jeff Pulver, co-founder of Vonage and founder of Free World Dial Up insists that VoIP is far from dead. Jeff retains the revolutionary tone popular before the SunRocket kerfuffle marred consumer opinion of independent VoIP:Others correctly observe that VoIP has simply changed shape. Gone are the "change the world" discussions of voice simply being data with an inevitable price point of zero. In their place is a residential VoIP market now dominated (to the tune of almost 90%) by the nation's largest cable operators. Comcast is now the nation's fourth largest phone company, adding half a million VoIP subscribers in the third quarter alone.

On the opposite trajectory is Vonage, the poster child for the independent VoIP movement, who many predict will finally fold in 2009. While Vonage struggles, the nation's two largest phone companies are prepared to finally take VoIP more seriously. Previously hamstrung by fears that they'd further cannibalize declining landline revenues, both AT&T and Verizon have major plans for VoIP in 2009.

Residential VoIP isn't dead as much as it is transformed -- from baby boomer with revolutionary ambitions, to a mid-level office manager dreaming of a bigger cubicle. Just a few years ago, the talk was about how pesky upstart VoIP operators would someday make voice communications free. Now, the talk is about whether you'll be getting your VoIP/broadband/TV triple play from a phone or a cable company.