http://www.webcogs.com/the_future_of_phone_calls_is_now.aspx
Last updated 03/05/2004
Opinion Piece by Richard Lowe
I ‘Skyped’ somebody the other day, and you probably don’t know what I’m talking about (unless you already use Skype – in which case, skip along to the second but last paragraph, and my apologies).
Are you interested? Then read on.
Bear with me a moment, and I’ll explain – you’ll catch on later in this article. For years, the only way that you could communicate with somebody over miles of ground and air was the telephone. This worked, and it worked very well. It caused a revolution in communication, as the postal service had done in years gone by with the advent of postboxes, stamps and letters.
Later (much later) came the facsimile/fax – being able to ‘transport’ a written paper document to the other side of the world was impressive, at the time (centuries before the invention of the fax this would have been deemed as ‘witchcraft’).
Then, with the birth of the mobile phone, first as a ‘brick’ and then (as we know it now) a tiny device that fits comfortably into your pocket, communication between people many miles apart became truly portable for the first time in human evolution.
Of course the companies that owned the communications network that interconnected all of these phones and mobiles were the telephone companies. These telephone companies charged for every minute and second of human conversation, quite rightly-so – they needed to not only survive commercially, but make profit in order to be viable businesses. After all, they had a huge infrastructure of cables and telephone exchanges to support.
A number of years later, the Internet was born - another revolution of communication technology that (generally) wholly relied upon this telephone infrastructure to function and eventually become popular with the masses. Telephone companies were very quick to jump on the bandwagon and provide both businesses and consumers with a means to connect to the Net – again (generally), charging by the minute.
However, very quickly, it became not only a global database of knowledge populated by the thoughts, feelings and aspirations of the human race, but also a very effective medium for communication in the form of ‘E-Mail’ – it started to replace the original postal system. Not only between homes and businesses, but between desks in an office. Memos started to become a thing of the past.
Due to the subsequent competitiveness of the Internet Service Provider market (especially after the very dramatic dot com crash), the Internet very quickly became affordable to an awful lot of homes and businesses in the Western world at a fixed monthly cost, rather than on the traditional ‘pay per minute’ business model of the telephone world.
Furthermore, links to the Net from both people’s homes and businesses evolved rapidly from dial-up Modem connections to broadband with the wealth of multimedia and online application choices that this resulted in.
Let me usher you back to the present time.
Along comes VoIP (Voice over IP) – talking to other people over the Internet – using audio – just like a telephone conversation. This technology takes full advantage of the fact that there are many people in the western world that pay for their Internet connection on a fixed monthly fee basis.
VoIP allows you to make telephone calls to other VoIP users without having to ‘pay per minute’ via your telephone company. How? Because your voice is split into packets and routed, over the Internet.
Effectively (and to the despair of many telephone companies, I’m sure) it throws the old and let’s face it, defunct, telephone business model of ‘charging per minute’ on its head. The same telephone companies that were eager to take people’s money on a per minute basis, were just as quick to offer ‘fixed price per month’ Internet access. So we shouldn’t feel sorry for them – they must have seen it coming!
One of the leaders in this technology is a company by the name of ‘Skype’. They are, of course a commercial organisation, but have the foresight to realise that it is not at all trivial to take the droves of telephone/mobile phone-using people and bring them over to VoIP technology. Everybody likes their fixed and mobile numbers.
So they have the perfect solution – give away their Skype software for free. After all, other than a small number of Skype ‘directory’ servers (which store people’s contact details), the actual running costs of offering free voice calls over the Internet is effectively nothing since the calls are routed over the Net – at no cost to them. The clever bit is their software which gives better-than-phone-call quality, generally regardless of the speed of your link to the Net.
This type of technology has been around for a number of years now, but Skype are succeeding where other companies (including big names like Microsoft and Cisco) have failed. You’re probably wondering why. Well, other than the fact that you have a memorable ‘username’ rather than a telephone number, let me explain.
Ultimately, people want to talk. They don’t want to worry about NAT Firewalls, VPNs and all of the other technical issues that are associated with this type of technology. They just want to install the software and talk with either their friends or business associates. They just want things to work, even over a dial-up connection.
This is where Skype appear to be coming from as an offering. Their software is free, works behind NAT firewalls, VPNs and furthermore, they even offer a ‘Skype Phone’ which you can use to call other users rather than use a cumbersome headset/mic combo. It plugs into your USB port and looks like a traditional phone.
A headset/mic combo offers better sound quality (as it should), but we all need to be alerted when somebody is trying to call us, and their phone has a ringer. You can call somebody on the other side of the planet, and not pay a penny.
So what’s the catch, you’re probably asking yourself? There isn’t one. They are committed to users always making Skype calls free, providing that you just want to chat with one person at the other end.
If you want conference calls, video calls and voicemail, then quite rightly so, there will ultimately be a subscription charge in the future. For the record, conference calls are presently free at the time of writing this article (up to five people chatting, regardless of their geographical location).
That’s better than paying per minute, let’s face it. Ok, it’s not free as such, but you don’t pay a penny, as long as you’re hooked into the Net, which for most of us in the Western world is a fixed fee.
To summarise, if you’re the chairman of a very profitable Telephone company, you’ll probably have already clicked away from this article in disgust. But I lay down the gauntlet and ask you why didn’t you see this coming?
However, if, like me, you want to embrace the future of phoning people, or should I say, ‘Skyping People’ then just Google for ‘Skype’ and ask your friends to do so also.
And if you need further convincing, then let me tell you that you that Wi-Fi Skype phones that you can walk around your home or business with are just around the corner.
The future of telecommunications is now – out with the old, in with the new. But hey, that's progress.
Richard Lowe
Managing Director
Webcogs.
