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VoIP And Cell Phones Eroding Traditional Telecoms
Lullabye_Muse writes "Yahoo! reports that telecoms in Europe and U.S. are losing in response to people switching their home phones for cellphones and dial up to cable modems. More info on specific VoIP discussed in latter part of article. The trend seems to becoming widespread, I guess 10 years and all the old wires are gonna start to be taken down."
I still keep my land-line operational, though... I'm beginning to wonder why.
Sigs cause cancer.
Can't say I am sorry for the companies that were once monopolies to finaly die.
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Wire will never bbe taken down, since they are the major source of broadband. Here in Mexico Telmex the only real tephone company has invested heavely on DSL and cable modems are virtually a thing of the past.
In the mean time Robert X Cringley thinks that they should turn the old lines into video streaming conduits for on-demand programming.
Seems like a good idea, but there is no way the telcos could sit down and think of doing that. They just aren't that innovative. Otherwise, they'd have been on VoIP awhile ago.
Does anyone know if one needs to pay for the phone service in order to keep DSL? I have DSL but feel like switching to cell phone for phone needs and I'd rather keep my DSL provider (worldcom)
I just moved. When I was living in an area that was kind of far out of town, I did not have cell coverage at my house. Now, we just moved and we do. So, no landline phone! My wife and I just use our cell phones. Of course, we still have our old numbers which are in a different area code. That freaks people our when we order pizza.
We used to have cable modem and used 802.11b for the past few years. Now, we have a neighbor who has a wireless network called "Linksys" with no WEP key set. So, we don't pay for internet anymore either. I suppose the day they put a wep key on it or shut it down, I will order either cable or DSL (we actually can get either where we live.)
We still have to pay for our cell phones and for electricity, but we're saving like $200 a month without phone or broadband. (Math check: Our old cable company wouldn't sell us broadband without digitial cable and the total price was like $100 a month. Plus, phone bill including long distance since the cell phones wouldn't work from the house and all our relatives live in other states.)
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You can complain all you want about a cellphone being more expensive, The way I see it is, when I want to make a call to an out of state on my cellphone it's just a normal call, but on a landline i have to worry about per minute costs that are very high, and start being high immediately, rather than after a certain number of minutes. It's fairly easy to make a cellphone you'r only phone, just make sure your plan has enough minutes for how much you plan on using it. And if that's not enough for you, keep in mind that most companies dont use up minutes for calls to other people using the same service, not just free calls at off hours. I shut off my landline almost 2 years ago after i noticed that for the same price, my cellphone provided a lot more features, and a lot more convenience.
The problem here is that right now I get my internet access from... SBC, same as my phone company. In a better world the ISPs would have a financial incentive to back VoIP against the phone companies' objections, and there could be a huge corporate battle ending up in consumer benefit. Doesn't really work when the ISP and the phone company are one and the same.
I guess Comcast (or your local internet-via-cable company) could start bundling VoIP with their broadband access, competing with the DSL people who already offer those bundles. Makes sense to me, although I still wish the providers of the services were different groups....
can't think any more... brain hurts... color scheme too ugly...
"TV is great! Every New Year's I make a resolution to watch more TV." - Ann Coulter
has anyone here tried to establish a dialup connection over VOIP?
Like those people who run emulators within emulators within emulators, something like this would have a pretty high geek-chic factor.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I'm actually surprised that voice modems haven't become popular and that answering machine capabilities haven't become standardised on computers the way faxing has. I've had modems that worked as answering machines before over the past decade, but the software was always a third-party application that wasn't integrated with the OS like faxing, and it never became one surprisingly. I presume the main reason for this is because people would tend to have a dedicated data line for the modem and have their voice lines separate. But I also think another reason is that people tend to use the voicemail of their mobile phones now more than answering machines.
With the popularity of broadband, dial-up modems on computers are simply becoming an option used more for faxes or for using a dial-up connection when the broadband connection is down. Macs used to support audio line-in from the modem port, but they dropped that feature for some reason, and it seems to have gone unnoticed. Having an audio line-in function for a dial-up modem would be a precursor to using it as an answering machine. One of the problems of having a fax is that people usually use a dedicated line for one rather than having the same number for both voice and fax. That's two phone bills, and there's no reason for it to be that way. I always thought that computers would merge voice, fax, and data into one phone line. But if you use a mobile phone for voicemail, then you won't be able to link it to your computer.
This is a paradigm shift, this is not the death of an industry. I've been seeing small peerings of VoIP on websites, Vonage has been leading the charge, and now I'm seeing Comcast, AT+T, MCI, and Verizon all blasting their VoIP offerings all of a sudden. The companies aren't dying, they are just switching their technology. Verizon has the DSL network and is parsing it out to all these DSL providers. Comcast has it's network. Now the othr telecomms are getting in on the act and catching up to Vonage. They know they have to join this wave or die, but of course they will join up and flourish.
What's great about this VoIP revolution is that this frees the phone number and service from the physical network. You buy the IP first, then connect your VoIP to it. And you can switch VoIPs and keep your number. Creating layers of technology each with different tasks opens up possibilities not seen before and will be a huge boob to the customer.
The telecomms won't be at the front, they aren't leaders, but they are never far behind. They'll charge a little more, try to buy up Vonage and the other companies, then consolidate into powerhouses again. Vonage might grow big enough to be a new telecomm, like T-Mobile and Cingular almost are.
My prediction is that it won't be until the NEXT revolution that small companies and mom and pop telecomms pop up and provide kickass service and competition. That revolution will be long range wireless networking.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Most customers will benefit but soome (eg. less profitable customers in outlying areas) will lose out.
Hahahaha! I take it you don't live in an outlying area.
My exchange was one of the last in NORTH AMERICA to be moved off an old switch that used in band signalling. While some might understand this provided much amusement in my youth, we didn't get private lines until about 1992 if I remember right. The line quality is BAD here.
Dispite millions? being promised and provided for broadband development in Rural areas by the Canadian government, my estimated date for DSL arrival is on a geological timeframe. Luckily, the terrain here is such I might be able to get a 802.11 link to a benevolant soul in the next year or so.
Where do I live? About 30 minutes outside a major center. Not the middle of nowhere. Basic service is what the law says I get, and basic service is what I get.
Here'e to hoping for the ability to get an affordable cell-based broadband connection. Two way satellite is still out of the question.
..don't panic
The whole "last mile to the user's home" issue is very soon guna become less and less of an issue with WiMAX and WiFi.
The city where i live just deployed free wifi internet access to most residents, with its reach to increase overtime.
IP is insanely powerful. Bandwidth is increasing, and compression algorithms are only getting better.
I'm looking forward to a future where all consumer-telco, cable and satellite companies will be replaced by a large multitude of ISPs.
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and I haven't had a land line since the beginning of '03. Haven't missed it much. never seem to get telemarketers on the cell that I would've had no matter what.
And looking at the rates for net access here... DSL: 256K: 26.00/mo. + landline: $30.00/mo. total price, 56.00/mo.
Cable?
3000k: 45.00/mo plus I get free basic cable...
Hmmmm....
Shift happens. Fire it up.
There is a bit of FUD about Tele 2 in this article. Actually Tele 2 is also offering broadband telephony at low costs and aren't being outdistanced at all (although I guess the Skype promotors in this article would like you to think otherwise). I use it at home and it is working perfectly.
There were in this country two very large monopolies. The larger of the two had the following record: the Vietnam War, Watergate, double- digit inflation, fuel and energy shortages, bankrupt airlines, and the 8-cent postcard. The second was responsible for such things as the transistor, the solar cell, lasers, synthetic crystals, high fidelity stereo recording, sound motion pictures, radio astronomy, negative feedback, magnetic tape, magnetic "bubbles", electronic switching systems, microwave radio and TV relay systems, information theory, the first electrical digital computer, and the first communications satellite. Guess which one got to tell the other how to run the telephone business?
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