Signal to Noise

I’ll take a liberty here and say that Ken Camp has an “old-school” telecommunications background. That’s not a bad thing. It just means he knows HOW we got to WHERE we got. And I appreciate that. There are some younger VoIP bloggers out there who don’t have the benefit of understanding the evolution (or some might say unraveling) of modern telecom, at least here in the States. I’m talking about the trust-busting of AT&T, the ill-fated Telecom 96 act, which occured ten years too early (it really needed VoIP to have any balls, instead we got two dozen telecom bankruptcies, the politically-raped USF, and a crap tariff to jack the price of landline service, regardless of carrier), and all the other events that occured between 1983 and the present to lead us to where we’re at. Don’t remember a company called Bell? Don’t remember the pin drop commercials and the hoopla about not needing an operator to dial long distance? Don’t remember Candace Bergan hawking long distance? Don’t remember rotary dial? Don’t have a clue what the  International Consultative Committee for Telegraphy and Telephony was? Well, Ken certainly does, and his perspective is important.

Because he’s seen a lot of spruce geese come and go.

With that in mind, it’s important to realize that his firey scalding of Rebtel and Jajah is a reinforcement of the notion of Voice 2.0. Look, Voice 2.0 is about empowering USERS, it’s about removing barriers to human interaction by making applications that converge voice and other mediums smartly. It’s about wrangling the OSI model into something that fulfills the promises of the dot-com bubble, in many respects. And, though I’m not as seasoned as Ken in the ways of wide-area bits and bites, it does seem patently clear that Rebtel and Jajah are going to be casualties of the next bubble pop. I don’t like it, but what can I say?

Ken says it better than I can (joined in progress, please read Ken’s full post):

Grand Central gave me a new phone number to use. Excuse me? I need another phone number like I need another hole in my…
I’ve got 9 working phone numbers already. Nine. What the heck do I need with another one???

Remember what I said about customers for life? One reason I have them is because they know my phone number. How many people are in your Outlook address book. I have about 1,700 in mine. That doesn’t count businesses, that’s just people. And I’m supposed to go give them all my new number? Or should I irritate them with something like Plaxo instead? (Don’t get me started on that!)

Don’t give me another number. Don’t dare to try to sell me a service that needs a new number. Let me share a word – SIMPLIFY. Don’t complicate my life with another phone number. Frankly, it’s unlikely I’ll use it. My phone number is tied to my identity with a lifetime of clients. If you’re going to charge for a service, even if I get some time to try it free, it better simplify my life. And yes, sometimes simplification is complex, but that value proposition better pretty much be in my face, or I’m not going to bite.

In other words, these solutions aren’t smart!  If you offer a solution and want to monetize it, then, by golly, it better help a majority of people accompish something fresh, new, and innovative, and at a cost that eclipses 5 to 1 any inconvenience it might introduce.  Alec–ask yourself, does Jajah really do that?
We need to focus on increasing ACTUAL functionality and lose the obsession with placing band-aids on the infrastructure of yesterday in order to save a half-cent a minute, which is the basis of these firms’ business models. When clients ask me about VoIP, they always bring up carrier cost savings. That may’ve been the case in 2001, but it’s getting tougher and tougher to make that case. So I switch them off of cost savings and turn them on to new ways of thinking about communications.

2.0, baby.

We need to think 2.0. We need to  worry about freeing the potential uses of the global network for effective human interaction, not inserting ourselves into the domain of carriers whose days we already know are numbered, by nature of their insensitivity to consumers and their inability to deliver the applications people want.

We have software now.  The IP world is a world of software. We can do whatever we want with global telecom by virtue of the software nature of this convergence movement we’re all so excited about. So why are we using software to least-cost-route cellular minutes, seriously? What’s the point in trying to sell to a mass-market solutions that (a) require aquiescence to the existing walled-garden of the cell phone business and (b) cater to only the smallest percentage of cell-phone device users–those that frequently roam internationally and those that happen to own one of the phones supported by these band aid solutions. Aren’t today’s consumers smarter than this? Tomorrow’s consumers certainly will be.
I think the phrase “a solution in search of a problem” is cliche, but one that applies. More succinctly, the phrase “a solution in search of a better solution” also applies.

But there ARE better solutions. Think IP. Think 2.0. Think about Fonav. Think about Google (who hasn’t even had their say in this business yet, but boy when they do…). Think about the global adoption of WiFi systems. Think about WiMax. Ask yourself–how fast has consumer wireless (not carrier-based cell wireless) become pervasive? Consumer-empowering technologies (of which WiFi is the principle example) have exploded, to the detriment of the big carriers. T-Mobile hotspots? PLEASE. Those will be gone sooner if not later. WiFi is cheap to provide and free to consume. Ask yourself–how long can a solution which dotes upon the druthers of the  slow, cranky, old-hat cellular carriers survive in an environment of increasing global consolidation of those carriers? And what happens when Jajah is obsoleted by an international cell carrier merger that yields a replacement which accomplishes the same thing as what these guys are doing? Is it a safe bet that folks are still going to be shelling out five hundred bucks a month for overages and roaming in another ten years? I doubt it.

The only reason the big cell carriers charge an arm an a leg for something that should in reality be commodity-priced is because they CAN. If Rebtel and Jajah’s only aim is to stop this fleecing, then I’m all for it. But if these think they can make money in the process, well, that’s going to require some rethinking.