Early predictions of how the internet might affect traditional businesses have generally turned out to be wrong. Newspapers have not been put out of business by websites and neither has there been a mass migration to online shopping, although it is growing. Moreover, in spite of the growth in e-mail, my curbside mailbox still fills up with the envelopes.

It is tempting to reject all such warnings as industry hype. Yet internet technology is having a fundamental impact. It is just not happening in the ways we expected.

Take, for example, internet telephony. Two years ago, placing a phone call via the internet was a hit-and-miss affair. Users had to synchronise their watches, pre-arrange a time when both would be online and ensure they had matching software. Even then, the connection was typically poor. It seemed that use of the internet for voice calls would be limited.

Yet today internet telephone calls can be made using ordinary telephones with far less fuss. These calls rely on gateways that link standard telephone networks to internet or internet protocol (IP) networks. However, they still are not as convenient as standard phone calls because they involve first dialling up the gateway and then dialling the number to which the call is directed.

Enter the gatekeeper – technology introduced last week by elemedia (www.elemedia.com), one of several ventures backed by Lucent, the telecommunications equipment manufacturer. The gatekeeper links the telephone network with the internet so that users can simply dial a number to place a call to any number, via the internet. In other words, internet telephony has achieved the convenience – if not the sound quality – of traditional telephony. This is good news for the handful of upstart internet telephone companies such as Delta Three (www.deltathree.com) and International Discount Telecommunications (www.net2phone.com).

Today, the primary advantage of internet telephony is cost. For as little as 5 cents a minute, you can place international calls. However, its price advantage may be short-lived. The US Federal Communications Commission is considering a plan to levy the same fees on it that are paid by traditional phone companies.

These include local access fees, paid by long-distance phone companies to regional phone companies for use of their networks, and payments to a universal service fund to subsidise basic telephone services for the poor and rural dwellers.

Internet telephone services – which few had expected to become viable – have so far avoided these charges. Yet as it becomes more difficult to differentiate between an internet phone call and one routed via telephone networks, regulators are asking why the same rules should not apply to both.

No surprise, perhaps, that US long-distance telephone companies have been among those lobbying for fees to be imposed on internet telephony. But in a twist that few could have predicted, large phone companies including AT&T, British Telecommunications and Deutsche Telekom, are now experimenting with internet telephony.

Increasingly, voice calls via the internet are viewed by these traditional telecom operators as a means of offering tiered services. Calls routed via traditional circuit-switched lines may become first class, while economy calls ride the internet.

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Internet telephony could also, indirectly, have a totally unexpected impact on retailers, banks and myriad other retail services. Already, online banking and electronic commerce are emerging as important web applications, primarily because they offer easy access to a wide range of products and services.

However, there is a drawback. The lack of human interaction can make electronic commerce feel unfriendly. There is no salesperson of whom to ask questions.

Let’s say, for example, you are buying a personal computer online, but the website is not specific about when the product will be delivered. To find out, you must call the customer service number provided on the website and speak to a sales agent.

Not only does this give electronic commerce a human voice, it also enhances the sales person’s capabilities. When the voice call is connected, the agent sees displayed on his or her screen the name and address of the caller and the relevant product.

Which real-life stores can match that kind of service? Probably very few. Thus in future online stores and retail services may set the standard for quality of service. It is a turnaround that few prognosticators of the impact of the internet had envisaged, yet it could be real very soon.