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In a keynote speech at ITExpo, Jonathan Christensen from Skype stated that VoIP is dead. I wasn’t there, but there is a lot of information about it on TMCnet.

In essence, the following arguments are given to prove VoIP is dead:

• There’s a new explicit handshake model before calling that uses presence and instant messaging.
• There are new wideband audio codecs in use.
• There are video calls.

VoIP is dead? Long live VoIP. IMHO these three arguments can only be made because VoIP exists! As usual, they represent a natural evolution, not a revolution. Video might be a revolution - it is heading in that direction.

But all of this got me thinking: is presence really central to my communication behavior?

Presence provides a new “secret handshake” for calls. You can check if someone is available, see that he is online (or even busy), use instant messaging to check if he can take a call, and when he answers, dial him wherever he is at whatever number suits him best. The problem is, presence is most useful from the desk, and I am not at my desk 24/7.

My Communication Behavior

I took the time last week to jot down all of my calls, incoming and outgoing: 168 in total (slow week). I didn’t include text messages (SMS), instant messaging or emails.

Here is the end result, split into the various types of calls:

Types of calls made during the week

I’ll add to this the fact that most of my calls during that week (66%) were made to or from my mobile.

The calls for which presence “secret handshake” is desirable may be those from RADVISION people, from my Family, from my Wife and from my Friends. Business calls are to and from external suppliers and partners, whom I don’t know on a personal level.

My wife is a Pilates teacher, so she moves around all the time, making presence information irrelevant for her, especially when she’s teaching classes. This takes her out of the picture - and no, she won’t be using mobile presence anytime soon.

Family-related calls may well use presence, but most of the time they don’t. Or can’t. And again the reason is mobility: I just can’t picture my mom walking around with a mobile phone and checking out if I’m online and available, sending me an instant message for that “secret handshake” and waiting for me to say I am free for a chat.

That leaves most of the calls inside RADVISION for presence usage. But then, some of those are cellular calls. In which case, I’d rather just try my luck and dial a number than browse a list of people and check their status.

I use presence a lot, but somehow, looking at my own statistics, it doesn’t seem to be the center of my communications - it’s just another tool in the bag.