As a 13 year veteran of the tech consulting gig here is my take on two businesses I think will be hot:

1) VoIP for the home. Voice over IP (Internet telephony) will replace the standard switching nets of yesterday - at least it will replace long distance rip-offs. There are many companies in India and Europe that will license you to be a exclusive reseller in your area. They are much more profitable that the Vontages of the world. Installing and getting it work at the home site is also profitable because it is all cash and no product inventory.

Also look into fax machines and systems that utilize VoIP - faxing is one of the most expensive users of Long Distance in a comapny - you could save them big $$.

2) Business Intelligence. All businesses will become privy to market research at some point in their maturation. Example: Who is my market, what are the demographics, what should I sell and at what price. Been around for a while with different branding but the web has made it simpler. But this is still hard research to put together and local business will pay big bucks for it if it is useful info. Many visits to the local city and county offices for demographic information and a lot of web research can yield great information for a mid-sized business. Sending examples to some target businesses is a great lead in - they will read it.

Examples: Try targeting manufacturers right now. They are going to rebound and the timing is right. Also try to find a niche like medical offices, docs and dentists need to know where to find more patients.

I personally would avoid Telecomm in general, VoIP or otherwise. Unless you can score a major contract with a large company, I really doubt people will see any profit. The home market is being hammered with super cheap long distance and cell phones with minute based charges instead of distance (1000 anytime minutes). Phone service is a dirt cheap commodity these days. By all means, prove me wrong, but I just don't thinking VoIP @ Home will be profitable.
Best of Luck,

I believe the reason for the price slashing is that the current systems are dinasaur like in that they are soon to be extinct

I have personally made hundreds of thousands of dollars off my sales of mci when deregulation first occured.

The thing with earning a few cents off of every person is that it adds up the thing with telcomm we all feel we need it to survive (need it to survive)

How many people use telcomm services here?

Just more of my $0.02 cents