The second-largest independent VoIP carrer's demise could leave many potential VOIP customers wary of doing business with other providers, only to have service vanish on them as well.

In an effort to compete with the market leader, VoIP services such as GrandCentral and TalkBack have come up with some interesting and useful features that may inspire you to switch.

VoIP wares are front-and-center at Interop this week, including news and new products from Microsoft, Avaya, Cisco, Nortel and others.

By combining technologies from Microsoft and its partners, businesses won't need to rip out and replace an existing phone system to add new capabilities.