While 2006 may not have necessarily been "The Year of VoIP," this calendar year certainly marked the turning of the corner into mainstream acceptance. As lawmakers deal with rules and regulations, and techies daily ogle new gear and upgrades, Voice over Internet Protocol technology looks to make the big splash in 2007. While 2006 may not have necessarily been "The Year of VoIP," this calendar year certainly marked the turning of the corner into mainstream acceptance. As lawmakers deal with rules and regulations, and techies daily ogle new gear and upgrades, Voice over Internet Protocol technology looks to make the big splash in 2007.

Yet, while PC owners have been calling cheaply while sitting in the glow of their friendly computer and internationally conference calling for prices lower than calling the next state via landline, Macintosh owners have mostly been dissatisfied with makeshift solutions and products not-quite-right even for the purely gaming set. Things have turned around in the last two years or so and Mac technology for VoIP hopes to bound forward just as readily as the rest of the market, but availability lags behind.

Below runs a quick look at VoIP past, present and short-term future, together with a few downloading opportunities for Mac users who want their VoIP.

The history and origins of VoIP for Mac

By now, everyone has seen the ubiquitous Macintosh adverts featuring slightly rotund nebbish "PC" and slightly hip mellow dude "Mac." In Macintosh's most successful ad campaign since its very first, the infamous "1984" commercial, the two guys good-naturedly personify their products in the form of quick banter. Inevitably, Mac's outlook prevails or PC does himself in. Until recently, though, Mac would have been disarmed in a verbal battle over VoIP capability, with Macintosh only recently catching up in terms of the new technology, even though they were there all along.

Wikipedia puts the birth of VoIP at 1973 with ARPANET, which in turn can go back to 1962, etc. Tom Keating of Internet Telephony Magazine calls Vocaltec's Internet Phone released in 1996 the first VoIP product. The first popular bit of Voice over Internet Protocol technology, though, would put VoIP's birth in 1998 with a product called Roger Wilco.  Back then, VoIP was quaintly known as "Internet Voice Radio" and, while VoIP was soon seen in more utilitarian terms for use in home or office, it was originally designed as a "tool" for gamers to talk while playing online. Aside from introducing the very technology itself, Roger Wilco was important because - believe it or not - alongside a version of VoIP for the PC was a beta-test version for Macintosh.

However, once GameSpy bought the rights to Roger Wilco, the Mac version was never explored further. Though reportedly a Mac version of Ventrilo Flagship  was promised as far back as 2002, only relatively recently has a first release of the Mac client become available. Gamers seem pleased today, but back in 2002, the only available option was iChat and this was "largely found