By Tara Seals

When it comes to mobile VoIP, perceptions can be misleading. Is mobile VoIP the next great disruptive application? If you consider the high-profile outcry over the blocking of Google Voice on the iPhone, or the pro-open-access proclamations from service providers like Clearwire Corp., who told me that over-the-top mobile VoIP was “welcome” on their networks, it’s easy to think so. Now add in the fact that technology is catching up (mobile broadband, ever-higher rates of penetration of Wi-Fi, cloud services). Meanwhile, MVNOs and 3G operators without legacy networks are using mobile VoIP for their voice component, and some, like T-Mobile USA, are turning to Voice over WiFi to give cell users better indoor coverage. In all, the picture looks pretty rosy for mobile VoIP. In fact, consulting firm ON World has predicted 100 million users of mobile VoIP services by 2011, generating revenues of $33.7 billion.

Only ... that’s only part of the story. There have been several high-profile service provider failures in mobile VoIP. Meanwhile, traditional network operators still rely on their circuit-switched voice as a bread-and-butter application, so there are going to need to be some interesting new monetization models to make it worth their while to allow it on their cellular arms (social networking/mobile VoIP integration that can work with IPTV? Targeted advertising? Tiered service levels??).

Then there’s the veritable cornucopia of ways that mobile VoIP players approach the market. Some are really more unified communications providers. Some integrate all types of communications into a portal, within which one app might be voice. Some offer clients for smartphones that allow cheap international calls. Some have more of an IT-focused model, enabling calls via laptop/dual-mode phone and a Wi-Fi connection. Some, like Google, are just adding in the functionality to round out its Web app portfolio. And of course, some are targeting businesses, while some are looking to the vast consumer market. It’s a patchwork of niche players, essentially, with no consensus (yet) on which business models will be successful in terms of anyone actually making money.

And finally, take a look at your mother’s use of new technology and you’ll see that whatever happens, it’s likely that mobile VoIP will be more of an evolutionary than revolutionary adoption curve.

So what’s the key to making sense of this lava lamp of a market segment? What’s real, and what’s a trick of the media light?

VON panelists hope to answer that on Tuesday with a panel called, fittingly, “Keeping it Real,” which will happen between 9 and 9:50 a.m. Moderator Diane Myers, directing analyst for service provider VoIP and IMS at Infonetics Research, will be joined by panelists from Truphone, Psytechnics and GENBAND in order to parse out what’s actually working in the mobile VoIP arena. I for one will be there, keenly interested in what kinds of conclusions they come to. For service providers, it’s important to note that mobile VoIP isn’t going away. But how to leverage it? And how critical is it to the future of the VoIP market as a whole? Is it like Twitter – destined for popularity but hopelessly un-monetizable?

I hope you can join the discussion because at this point, everyone’s got a different perspective.