Wed, 21 February 2007 This weeks episode is about the intersection between telephony and Web 2.0. We have two talks, one from a carrier perspective and one from a software developer. Norman Lewis is the director of Technology Research for the Home Division of France Telecom. The last five years in telephony have been nothing short of a bombshell for the incumbent telecommunications companies. Dr. Norman Lewis of France Telecom, believes that the telcos have no one to blame but themselves and their own business models. Lewis refers to many blunders made in recent years, such as the way most phone companies handled their implementation of 3G wireless services. Billions were spent to create WAP, a Web experience on the mobile phone that was too slow and cumbersome for most users. Instead, mobile phone customers turned to SMS text messaging as a primary communications channel, a move Dr. Lewis believes no business analyst predicted ahead of the phenomenon. In this keynote address to the telephony developer community, Lewis explains why a company with billions in voice related revenue at stake finds it so hard to innovate on voice related applications. David Beckemeyer is CEO of TelEvolution. Using a metaphor from the Matrix films, David Beckemeyer of PhoneGnome challenges us to look at the future of voice over IP. He argues that the current state of IP telephony is much like internet 1.0: Service providers determine the services, applications, and innovation available. Consumers, once they've chosen a provider, are basically locked in. Beckemeyer explains that the internet of today is more open. Consumers are not locked in by their service providers. Rather, innovation can be created anywhere, and the marketplace decides which ideas are successful. His question, then, is how to move to this kind of thinking in the voice over IP market. In discussing his new venture, PhoneGnome, Beckemeyer describes the beginnings of this VoIP 2.0 vision. This different approach to VoIP allows users to shop around for plans to call PSTN phones rather than forcing users into a plan. To create an open future for VoIP, he argues, providers must create services that give people value now and are flexible enough to allow consumers and developers to move to a new era for VoIP. According to Beckemeyer, innovation and wealth are created only in a climate of freedom and choice, and this is the future he is trying to foster. This weeks music is Geoff Smith with 'Mr Telephone' from http//music.podshow.com Comments[0] |
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