The coming year is expected to be one in which VoIP will experience a great deal of growth, as more and more flexible options continue to enter into the market.

Phil Hill (News - Alert), one of Vocalocity’s web analysts, has mused that as 2008 is the year of the rat as reckoned in ancient Chinese culture, expansion is on the way for the VoIP market. For those not familiar with Chinese astrology, the rat has traditionally been associated with prosperity.

"People born under the sign of the rat are considered to be energetic, versatile and able to overcome obstacles," said Hill. "Versatility and the ability to overcome obstacles are qualities VoIP may indeed share."

Flexible call options are being viewed as one of several major growth areas for VoIP services. Related to this is the recent push towards entering the mobile phone market.

A recent study undertaken by Disruptive Analysis has predicted that upwards of 250 million different users are expected to access VoIP services using 3G connections from their mobile phone in less than five years’ time. By 2012, such a thing will most likely become rather commonplace.

Nevertheless, business users in particular may be greatly interested in seeing major improvements to the security of calls, as well as to how well it can be integrated into the company’s overall IP-PBX systems before the time comes when mobile VoIP finally makes the full-scale breakthrough it’s expected to make.