Telepocalypse

Smellster

I really wish I could write some gushing praise for Jeff Pulver’s new Bellster telco disintermediation service. After all, I suggested a similar thing last year, and I’m sure the thought is hardly original.

Bellster is a PSTN-VoIP interconnect added to the you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours algorithm of BitTorrent. So what’s the problem?

Well, installation issues aside, it misunderstands how the PSTN creates value. Firstly, most PSTN endpoints can’t call more than one (or two, with 3-way calling) other end points at once. Abuse is limited to real-time use. There’s a natural brake. Secondly, there’s identity collateral behind the telephone numbers (they can be traced back in a number of ways), and a governance mechanism to enforce good behaviour. Yes, these are both imperfect, and can be done better on a stupid network. But Bellster undermines both, and thus will suffer from poor social scaling.

To make Bellster more effective I would have made it less general. Rather than try to solve the anyone-call-anyone problem, I would have tried to overlay some sort of social network. My wife’s family’s computer will route any calls we have to Lithuania. Maybe second-order routing would be allowed too: a friend-of-a-friend could call as if they’re me. But allowing arbitrary strangers to impersonate me? No way!

It’s a victim of the un-stupid network; all the identity infrastructure is hidden centrally, and you can’t morph it into new forms and purposes.

So my prediction: this will generate an initial fenzy of interest, but will remain a niche. Much like Free World Dialup, which underestimated the value of convenience, usability and ubiquity.

Just because postage and packing becomes free doesn’t mean the PSTN product has no value and can automatically be disintermediated!