Thursday morning I'll be in Lansing on a panel for the Telecommunications Association of Michigan's Politech conference.

These are mostly lobbyists from the bigger phone companies, reps from the smaller ones, and interested state legislators. What should I say to them?

First, you dare not ignore Skype and its kin. Just to get a sense of scale, here are Michigan's top 16 cities by 2003 population [on the right], collectively 2.5 million. Skype is picking up 200,000 new users per day. If all of that energy were here in Michigan, Skype would penetrate 100% your bigger cities in two weeks. And the whole state of 10 million in 50 days. Dear TAM member, how many new customers did you pick up last year? And how much did you pay for them? Skype has less than 400 employees. 

Skype/eBay is not alone. Microsoft Vista comes to a desktop near you later this year. Watch adoption of their Windows Live Messenger with voice and video. What's Microsoft's installed base in your geography?

Your response may be to respond in kind. Everyone and their brother is licensing or building up their softphones. Others are creating consumer non-PC VoIP solutions through Skype or softphones embedded in home phones. Yet others are following Skype onto mobiles or leapfrogging them. Are you used to competing in a very crowded market?

In a very crowded market, how will customers choose? What are the drivers of consumer choice in the world of Skype, QQ (the largest single-language IM/voice network on Earth), and AOL? What are their goals? The risks they're managing? If you answer cost containment, you're right, of course. But that just gets their attention.

So, this shift is big, it's real, it's happening now, and it's affecting your customers' relationship with you. More to come.