Tag: telepocalypse

Telephony to co-presence

I’ve noticed that Skype has changed the way my household communicates with the rest of our family. Even though we still have PSTN access to each other, we very rarely use it. We’ve become reluctant to interrupt each other without some form of presence indicator telling us it’s OK. If someone is online, they’re not depooing babies or watching a movie. We talk for much longer, but in a more relaxed way. The PC in our living/dining area has speakers and a webcam – we don’t use headsets. My wife can chat to both her parents at once, not serially. It doesn’t feel like a phone call when your family are chatting with you while you make dinner. When my parents were over in Kansas City, we were sat around the dinner table chomping away, nattering with my brother in London. The whole anxiety that you need to say something meaningful to justify the payment of money to a phone company evaporates.

most telephone conversations that extend one minute have been asynchronous, we just haven’t admitted it in the past. (doodles anyone?) a shared understanding that attention varies and the elimination of technical limits to voice communication patterns move “telephone” conversations towards ambient virtual co-presence. this is exciting because it brings down the wall between virtual and real another tiny bit.

No more scarcity

Personal communications services have sparked a sea change in data services delivered to phones, using 90 MHz. The Wifi revolution in wireless local-area networking was started with only 84 MHz. Now imagine more new spectrum made available simultaneously in the next few years than is now used by the satellite TV, PCS, and Wifi industries combined

and

A newly permitted method of using spectrum, ultra wide band, takes spread spectrum to its logical conclusion, operating at such low power that, subject to appropriate safeguards, it can underlie existing licensed services. That is, preexisting users of the same spectrum bands won’t even know the ultra wide band transmissions are there. It will be as if we figured out a way for freight trains to travel on highways, with cars being none the wiser. Standards work is already under way to make ultra wide band the core technology for home entertainment networks, transferring video, audio, and photos among home PCs, stereos, high-definition televisions, and DVD players.

conclusion:

Incumbent mobile operators and broadcasters will almost certainly face greater competitive pressures from both licensed and unlicensed alternatives. The spectrum portfolios of incumbent operators, especially the large cellular phone companies, may be the first to be devalued.

Telco Mass extinction

i went shopping for a mobile contract on saturday. with the new alliance between swisscom and vodafone, i was vainly hoping that they would offer an intelligent plan for people who travel a lot and do not want to pay ridiculous roaming charges. i was especially interested in a plan that would let me have 2 numbers, 1 for switzerland and 1 for the us, while also offering me GPRS. of course, no such thing exists. which means i will be looking into VOIP solutions next. meanwhile, the telcos will have a problem on their hands too:

I was just doing some computations today on my fingers and toes on the scale of the problem of replacing voice revenue at a hypothetical telco totally unrelated to my employer:

  • Voice Revenue of hypothetical telco: $25B
  • Proportion of voice revenue that is service rather than access: 50%
  • Gartner prediction for last circuit-switched PSTN call: 2020

Assume you retain 100% of access fees, lose 100% of service fees. Assume wireless and wireline go 100% IP-based.

Some numeric prestidigitation means that on average you need to find $600m of new business EVERY YEAR for the next 17 years. This needs to be conjured up from completely new intermediary roles and new services: access revenue is already factored in. And this is just to stand still. Oh, and it’s front-loaded since most of the people who are motivated to leave because they’re paying a lot will leave in the early years. The last person with a pure circuit PSTN line will be a sad case indeed. So you’re probably looking at having to invent a new $1B business every year. Without fail.

also, dear telcos, what is your strategy for ambient virtual co-presence?