Telepocalypse

Unbundling telephony

The new SIPphone adapter has been launched. This shows how the vertical unbundling of telecom is accellerating. Traditional telecom attempts to bundle service (speak to someone not here) with access (copper cable to central office or local switch box). Arbitrageurs like Vonage are trying to bundle multiple bridging technologies (an ATA box to make your old phone work, and a PSTN interconnect). This product unbundles Vonage. I can now buy my customer equipment bridge (the SIPadapter) separately from my PSTN interconnect bridge (a calling card service which accepts inbound SIP connections).

However, I think that the SIPadapter people have yet to hit on the killer product. They need something that can disintermediate carriers without so much user effort. You shouldn't need two phones in your house. It should be trivial for the user provsion the device with the details of a calling card service, and have the device perform any pre-dialling or account details entry.

Another device might be necessary to help make this mass market. Many people will be slow to let go of their PSTN line. You should be able to plug in two uplinks: one to your cable/DSL line, and the other to the PSTN. The device would then automatically route over the right network. I dial my brother's SIP phone in Europe, it goes VoIP end-to-end; I call for a pizza, it goes through my local PSTN line; I dial my parents in London, it automatically uses a calling card prefix.

The days of Vonage are probably numbered because their own success will cause further arbitrage and disintermediation. I personally can't see myself paying their monthly recurring charge plus international calling charges for much longer: it is almost cheaper to buy all my relatives in Europe a DSL line and a SIP phone.