Enough is enough.
A few months ago there was a raging discussion going on VoIP bloggers. I believe it was started by Jonathan Christensen, GM of audio and video in Skype, who proclaimed that VoIP is dead at IT Expo, and from there it caught fire. Alec Saunders, Jon Arnold, Andy Abramson, Om Malik, Jeff Pulver and many others have taken sides in this debate.
We, who work in the VoIP industry, still feel a bit of an underdog in the big telecommunication game, but the reality is – we’ve already won. IP has conquered the world. Communication is IP based. Nothing else matters.
An ad about nothing?!
A few days ago Garrett Smith, a fellow blogger, tweeted the weirdest tweet:
A TV ad for VoIP? Although I haven’t seen it, as I’m living in provincial Israel, I can tell you it is a bit stupid. There is no place for VoIP in the consumer world.
I’ll say it again, in another paragraph, just for good measures: There is no place for VoIP in the consumer world.
And it’s not because there is no room for VoIP in that world; it’s just that that the existence of VoIP there is irrelevant for most consumers. Luca Filigheddu wrote about it in his post about AT&T’s move to close down their CallVonage service:
I know very well that this is a “shared access” solution and I’m now using a VoIP service, but my wife (a “normal” user, according to the definition above) doesn’t really care. I told her how the system works but she told me: “ok, does it work? It is enough for me!“.
Surprise, surprise! People don’t care about technology. They care only about the service, the experience.
No one does “a PSTN call”. Or “an ISDN call”. Or, heavens forbid, “an SS7 call”.
And you know what? People don’t “do VoIP calls” either.
They just make phone calls.
So let’s just kill VoIP already and get on with our lives.
Time to kill VoIP
Of course, in “kill”, I really, secretly, mean that we should dissolve it into the background of our lives, and go on pleased to know that we use it but don’t need to think about it ever again.
May it rest in peace.
Tags: Alec Saunders, Andy Abramson, communication, consumers, Garrett Smith, Luca Filigheddu, Om Malik, PSTN, Services, Skype, Twitter, VoIP, VoIP is Dead, Vonage
Comments and trackbacks
1. Scott Wharton | May 1st, 2009 at 4:32 am
Hi Tsahi,
Nice post. I wrote something on the topic of “Is VoIP Dead” a few months ago on my blog as well:
http://www.ipbusinessmag.com/blogs.php?blog_id=1026&author_id=3
Scott
2. Tsahi Levent-Levi | May 1st, 2009 at 4:54 am
Scott,
I remember reading that post – really liked it. VoIP is only plumbing. Time to move on to services, which is what your company is doing these days
Tsahi
3. T_A_B | May 7th, 2009 at 7:31 am
The precept is all well and good but the discussion should be “is VoIP mature enough to offer a transparent telephone service” i would contest that it is not. Primarily because the providers are too cheap to assign enough resources to each call. I have tried a number of VoIP providers in the UK and not one was able to offer consistent call connections and or audio quality.
The most common complaint being echo on the line, or failure to connect to off network numbers. You article would suggest that if we switched a cities phones over to VoIP in the night they wouldn’t notice a difference the next day… they almost certainly would with the current providers. When you can switch someone to and from VoIP without them noticing then and only then can we lose the distinction and stop calling it VoIP.
4. Tsahi Levent-Levi | May 7th, 2009 at 9:42 am
T_A_B,
You raise some valid points here, but the thing is this: the technology works and is ready. Operators are what’s blocking most of the adoption – and when they do adopt it (in international calling for example) – it is already transparent and works well.
Time for us to stop pitching for VoIP and start pitching for services.
As for the noticing part of things – you should notice when you switch to VoIP – but not because the quality of the call is worse, but because the flexibility of the services is better.
Tsahi
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