Along with position/location tracking technologies, voice-over-IP-over-Wi-Fi (or what many of us now simply call "VoFi") is the hot topic for 2004. And it's just what you think it is: voice-over-Internet Protocol implemented on the Wi-Fi infrastructure otherwise used to build a wireless LAN. Does it work? Absolutely. I've tried several versions, both production and engineering prototype, and it's everything one could want in a cordless phone. And cordless phones are a fixture in many homes; I wouldn't want to live without it.

But the operative word is "homes." While cordless-phone systems designed for business and commercial applications have been around for a long time, relatively few people use them. They've been quite popular in warehouses, factories, hospitals and other essentially vertical markets, but not with general-office workers. This seems odd at first glance, since we're all wedded to our cell phones and take them everywhere. Why shouldn't our office phone go with us, just like a cell?

Enough already

The simple answer is that we don't want to carry yet another phone. It's bad enough that many of us tote phones, PDAs, notebooks and all manner of wireless e-mail devices; the camel's back is already in intensive care. So, while it would be nice always to have the office phone in one's pocket or purse, it's inconvenient. And we can conclude that while demand for VoFi will build this year, there won't be any big need to think about opening the floodgates yet.

That will become necessary when a number of other below-the-surface trends in Wi-Fi start to make ripples. The first is the broad availability of combined cell/VoFi phones, and we should see a number of these later this year. That addresses the multidevice problem, but one other key element is required. Since cell phones are sold by the carriers, their entry into the Wi-Fi space is key, both via public-access services and by offering managed voice and data services to the vast majority of businesses that have yet to stick a toe in the Wi-Fi pond. Thus, the carriers pick up a big piece of in-building phone service and ride the crest of the Wi-Fi wave via a business they already understand: mobile voice. Because the carriers will spend much of 2004 consolidating, this isn't the year of VoFi. But it won't be long.

Craig J. Mathias is principal of Farpoint Group (Ashland, Mass.).