In an otherwise excellent article at El Reg on Vodafone and VoIP, I just had to comment on this one:
The plan is to exploit the superior spectral efficiency of the 3G networks to bring voice prices crashing down and remove the main advantage of VoIP.
Bzzzzt. Nul points. Please re-read your Stupid Network primer. The point of a Stupid Network (as implemented imperfectly by IP) is unbounded option value. In this case, the ability to do new things with voice calling.
Remember, not a single Vodafone customer, not one living soul out of over 100m people, can tell if the person they’re calling is already on a call before they press the green button.
Until they start “innovating” (you call that innovation?) and creating a better communications experience, they deserve all the price pressure they get.
Posted by Martin Geddes at 10:06 PMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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You said:
Remember, not a single Vodafone customer, not one living soul out of over 100m people, can tell if the person they’re calling is already on a call before they press the green button.
My reply:
Is this not the purpose of the "Presence and Availability" Services of the OMG? - One of layered services on top of your hated IMS?
I'm sure there are loads of people in the labs with this type of service available.
Innovation is alive in wireless :-)
Posted by: at July 19, 2005 02:15 PMErrr, and how long have we had 3G service? And how long do we have to wait for IMS? Sure, it may be working in the lab, but who is going to wait for IMS when you can have a rich presence experience at home, at the office and in the coffee shop for a fraction of the price half a decade earlier? It's the economics of IMS, not the technology, that's the problem.
Posted by: at July 19, 2005 03:00 PMWell, if we look at the economics...
2G is thrashing advanced services which are thrashing Skype etc - just look at the revenues - just because something is free doesn't mean that the majority will use it!!!
The problem economics are with Skype / VOIP not with 2G / 3G
Posted by: at July 19, 2005 03:57 PMMartin you say "Errr, and how long have we had 3G service? And how long do we have to wait for IMS?" - But how long have we had VoIP before we got to see the more user friendly models of today ?
Also, even with VoIP(or IP based communication services) you cannot predict the call status of the person on the other end. Its only the presence status, which may or may not reflect the call status. This has, by the way, been existing in 2G and 3G for quite a while, in the times of Wireless Village and other propreitary messenger and presence technologies. IMS may bring a more unified and standardized approach to it, which I dont believe exists even in the VoIP world yet.
Note, this doesnt mean that I think IMS is trouble free. And yes, economics is definitely one of them.
Posted by: at July 20, 2005 01:10 PM