A new telephone technology is breaking out from the realm of geeks and early adopters and into the business world.

VoIP - voice over Internet Protocol - allows telephone conversations to be sent using the same technology that powers the Internet. The promise for users is cheaper calls and new features.

It's catching on. A May study by Info-Tech Research Group, a technology consultant for mid-sized businesses, found that 23 percent of small- to mid-sized companies are already using VoIP technology. It expects that to hit 50 percent by 2008.

Honeytree Learning Centers is one of that 23 percent, having switched the phones in eight of its Roanoke-area locations to VoIP service provided by Cox Communications earlier this year.

According to network administrator Todd Webb, that saves the company $150 to $300 per month for same-quality service.

Honeytree's primary motivation was price, according to Webb, and that jibes with Cox's view of the telephone market. Cox markets its phone service as simply "digital telephone."

Marilyn Humphrey, general manager of Cox's Roanoke office, said that for the small businesses Cox serves, "It doesn't boil down to a technology decision. It really boils down to a services provider decision. The technology is kind of a 'so what.'"

For larger companies, however, VoIP technology plays a much larger role. It simplifies network management, makes employees more efficient and reachable, and can keep costs down.

Don't confuse commercial VoIP with those, such as Vonage, that route calls over the Internet. The VoIP offered by Cox, Verizon, and other companies carry calls over private networks, much like traditional phone service.

Large companies wouldn't take chances with Internet-based phone services, said Teresa Mastrangelo, a broadband analyst at the Windsor Oaks Group in Roanoke. "A business like Wachovia is never going to use something like that," she said.

Larger companies - those that maintain their own data and phone networks - look to "enterprise level" VoIP (often called "IP telephony") for reasons beyond simple savings. VoIP offers them a lot more.

In a traditional phone connection, two people are physically connected by an electrical circuit. But VoIP connects people the way computers on the Internet communicate. Voices are turned into chunks of data called "packets" that are sent over the same connections that carry other information.

And turning voices into data has a lot of advantages for both the communications company and the people using it.

"It really comes down to features, functionalities and cost savings," Mastrangelo said.

For one, VoIP makes things simpler and cheaper.

"There's definitely a quantifiable cost savings," said Kevin Irland, spokesman for Verizon's enterprise solutions business. "Instead of maintaining two networks - a voice network and a data network - you're putting all your traffic onto a single network. It helps reduce your management costs."

VoIP also offers new features. A company can do the same things in VoIP with a phone conversation that it can do with any other data: Save it, copy it, encrypt it or move it easily from point to point. Software is being developed to do all those things.

"Enterprises that were having a hard time understanding the value of VoIP outside a cost savings ... are starting to see a lot of interesting applications," Mastrangelo said.

Irland rattled off a list of possibilities, some of which exist now, some of which are in development:

• "Click to dial," where your computer dials a number from an address book.

• Real-time call management, where you can instantly route a call to voice mail or another person.

• "Find me, follow me," where a call will automatically go to your cellphone, home phone or the hotel you're staying in - or all three.

• Selective call treatment, where only callers you specify (your child's school, for example) will ring through while other calls are routed to voice mail.

• A "unified mailbox" containing all your e-mail and voice mails.

It even goes beyond voice. As Roger Baiers, director of Cox's business services put it, "The video features are endless" - picture phones and video conferencing are easy to implement.

Although VoIP has been around for the better part of a decade - as Mastrangelo explained, most long-distance and international calls use it at some point along their route - only recently has it made inroads into individual businesses.

"It has slowly moved from an international application, to more of a national trunking application," Mastrangelo said, "And now we're starting to seeing it move down to the local level."