As is our custom when the New Year begins, today we'll present our top 10 predictions for VoIP and convergence in 2008, covering unified applications, SIP-based hosted VoIP, VoIP over 3G wireless, and more.

1. Unified applications (our term for the next big thing after unified communications) will move forward slowly as ordinary business processes, IT applications, and the enterprise telephony system become more and more integrated.

2. Building on the ongoing multivendor SIP interoperability progress, U.S. carriers will begin to offer SIP-based hosted VoIP with a new generation of Class 5 softswitches, supplementing their current SIP-trunking Class 4 offerings. But they will still use the legacy PSTN as a gateway to other carriers and their own back office systems.

3. Now that 3G wireless network build-outs are largely complete, 2008 will see VoIP being delivered over a 3G wireless network, although Europe and Asia will still be the technology leaders before U.S. carriers step up to the challenge.

4. Once the U.S. mobile carriers start to offer VoIP over a 3G network, they will finally get down to bringing a credible unified communications service to their enterprise mobility portfolio.

5. IMS-supported VoIP will be introduced by one or more mobile providers, moving the mobile industry beyond SIP-only mobile VoIP.

6. Fewer that a dozen IMS-supported services will be offered by U.S. wireline carriers.

7. AT&T will launch a next-generation consumer VoIP service to replace its current CallVantage service and it will deliver it over its U-verse (VDSL) network as a complement to its triple play offering. Verizon will follow a similar path and start to offer in-region next-generation consumer VoIP services over the Verizon FiOS network.

8. Vonage will still be in business, and may even turn a profit after a rough year in 2007, but it will continue to lose ground to the cable companies as a VoIP market share leader.

9. After its big 2007 unified communications launch targeted to the large enterprise, Microsoft will put its marketing muscle behind an effort to bring unified communications to the mid-tier business market. Other smaller UC suppliers targeting the same market will benefit from Microsoft’s activity.

10. The upcoming FCC spectrum auction will prove an interesting opportunity for companies like Google to offer new services over a mobile network, but complications with the auction will prevent new spectrum from becoming an available resource for new services before the end of the decade.

Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. Larry Hettick is a principal analyst at Current Analysis.