Dial W for Web.

Goodbye, dial tone. Hello, Web tone? Latin American companies are ditching traditional phone lines for Internet-based telecommunications, a move which experts say will allow them to handle data and voice over a single line and, ultimately, lower costs. Internet protocol (IP) telecommunications has come of age, and Latin America's biggest companies are trying to keep up. Demand for the service in the region is forecasted to double. "IP in terms of number of circuits is close to 12% of total connections," says Gabriela Baez, an analyst at U.S. consultancy Pyramid Research. "We are expecting it to be between 20% and 25% in 2008." Tech equipment maker Cisco has partnered with the region's major telecoms to offer not just hardware but play a key role in developing IP technology. "An IP solution is not only made up of equipment," says Carlos Carnevali, services acceleration manager for Cisco Latin America. For instance, IP technology allows companies to spend more on connecting to offices that are most important and less on smaller operations. The winners are likely to be telephone carriers, which can manage networks for companies--for a fee. Telephone companies that adopt IP infrastructure also will be able to provide customized services to clients that migrate to the technology, says Baez.