PORT CHARLOTTE -- Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has come to Southwest Florida, and it may leave a certain telephone company "sprinting" to catch up.

VoIP technology allows users to make telephone calls over a high-speed Internet connection instead of a regular phone line. Proponents say it's cheaper, faster and allows users to call anyone who has a telephone number, including local, long distance, mobile and international numbers.

"In 12 to 15 years, VoIP is going to completely replace copper-wire telephony," predicted J.D. Sullivan, co-founder of Igonet, an Internet telephone company based in Port Charlotte.

Igonet is marketing its VoIP technology for $29.95 a month. There are no additional long-distance charges for making calls to 20 countries, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Hong Kong, China.

Customers are provided an analog terminal adapter (ATA), which is no bigger than a pack of cigarettes and has computer and phone jacks.

"You can call anywhere you can call on a regular phone," said CEO and co-founder John Ostime.

"And you don't have to wait until after seven o'clock to dial free," said Lynda Leonard, the company's sales manager, who received the firm's first check for a sales associate Monday.

The Igonet system also includes wake-up calling, e-mail and voice mail. Users can have as many as five different numbers that when dialed anywhere in the world, ring to the ATA.

"You can take the box all over Europe, hook it up to a high-speed Internet connection and make calls," Ostime said.

Igonet's control room is located in Boston, Sullivan said, and the firm has offices in Dallas and Toronto as well.

"This is our call center, customer-service center and rep support center," Sullivan said of the Port Charlotte office. "Our sales people sell all over the U.S. and Canada.

"It's basically a cyber-business," he added. "You sign up online, you sign up to be a distributor online and we normally pay online."

Sullivan said Leonard's check, being the first one issued by Igonet, was a special occasion. They awarded her the check Monday in front of their building on Aaron Street.

Sullivan and Ostime leased the structure, which previously housed the Farr law firm, a few days before Hurricane Charley struck in August 2004. The storm set them back, but they finished the remodeling in July of this year.

George Jackson, a Charlotte County real estate broker who owns his own advertising firm, arranged the lease.

"I was so inspired with this company, I was one of the first to sign, and one of the first things I did was take it to Lynda," Jackson said.

Leonard has her own Web site where she can sign up clients and future distributors. She said she now has seven clients, several in Italy.

"She gets paid for her customers, plus a percentage of future customers," Sullivan said.

They have hired a dozen people and plan to hire 50 to 55 people over the next 12 months. Compensation for the sales reps -- who are independent contractors -- works like an Amway system. Reps sign up users and receive a commission, then the new users become distributors, and so on. The original rep receives a percentage of all sign-up fees down the line.

"We're looking for people in Southwest Florida," Sullivan said, "who can contact their friends and associates and tell them about this exciting new service."

VoIP providers are rapidly gaining in popularity in the United States and abroad. Others include Vonage, AT&T CallVantage, BroadVoice and Skype.

VoIP started in Asia, Sullivan said, and "just started to take off in the last 20 months." He said Japan had 300,000 users in 2000 and more than 7 million at the end of 2004. He said U.S. use has climbed from 350,000 in 2003 to 2.5 million today. He predicted there would be 25 to 30 million VoIP users in the United States at the end of 2008.

The current U.S. Internet telephony leader, Vonage, launched in 2001 and said it had about 600,000 lines in service as of April 2005. AT&T's VoIP service, CallVantage, reported 53,000 subscribers at the end of 2004.

Comcast, the nation's No. 1 cable provider, expects to offer its digital phone service to 15 million homes by the end of year, while America Online recently debuted service in 40 markets.

Igonet currently is offering VoIP to customers who already have high-speed Internet connections. The next step is to bring wireless, high-speed service to customers. Igonet already has a tower on Bermont Road in Burnt Store Meadows and Sullivan plans more towers in the near future.

"Of 67,000 homes and businesses in Charlotte County, 22,000 can't get high-speed Internet," he said. "We'll need three to four towers to cover Charlotte County and North Port."

The new towers won't be brought into play until next spring, Sullivan said, when technological standards are approved and adopted by all manufacturers.

"When that happens," he predicted, "you'll see a massive build-out of wireless in the U.S. and Canada."

Sullivan said the current tower has a customer capacity of 1,200, but "we're stopping at 100, because we don't want to have to go out and make a lot of changes when the standards come out."

Other area companies offering wireless, high-speed Internet include Daystar Communications, a division of Sun Coast Media Group (publisher of this newspaper). Daystar is focusing solely on business clients at this time, while Igonet is courting individual consumers as well as businesses.

"We're doing good just servicing businesses," said Bill Dees, Daystar's director of engineering. "We've got 850 clients right now between Sarasota and Punta Gorda."

Igonet is charging $49.95 a month for wireless high-speed Internet. You can package that with VoIP for $79.95 a month. Sullivan said telephone customers in the United States pay an average of $72 a month for phone service alone.

"Charlotte County has never had a choice," Sullivan said. "Sprint went to the Florida Public Service Commission and said our costs are higher here, so our bills have to be higher.

"We're telling people they can cut their phone bill by 65 percent and call anywhere, anytime," he added.