A review of what happened to the Internet in 2005

Evidently it's been a big year for the internet. Some of the points that the article covers are:

1. The changing face of the internet due to the expansion of broadband into a major percentage of internet access.
2. Legal music download services. This is getting to be a big part of the internet economy. Apparently, people love music and are willing to pay for it!
3. Google everything.
4. Internet telephony. I'm sure everyone who reads this blog is familiar with voice chat, especially as offered by AIM, Yahoo, and MSN.
5. Cities offering wifi networks (especially the free ones). Cities offering free internet, usually at public libraries, is no new thing, but cities are making wireless internet freely available to anyone in the city. Amazing, yes?

The author makes a very intriguing final statement:

Late update: Vonage just announced it will soon introduce a mobile handheld
Internet phone that can utilize WiFi hotspots -- or citywide wireless -- at less
than today's cell-phone services. When wireless, high-speed Internet is
ubiquitous, all telecomm bets are off.

Very interesting. Of course, you can also use that voice chat that the IM services make available while logged on to a city's free wifi network. A defacto free telephone service? Technology is taking us into some very new territory. It remains to be seen how the government (at the federal level) views all this and how they'll get involved.