Easy VoIP is a POTS Killer
Why VoIP needs to become easier?
Ronald Guria asks the question how reliable should VoIP be? There is only one answer - completely and 100%. If any technology wants to disrupt and replace a system that has worked well for over 100 years, it has to be near darned perfect. The million odd early adopters don’t make a market - they are nothing but an extended beta test. I have argued about the ease of use and reliablity before. VoIP continues to fail the mom test. For the longest time I thought, perhaps I was alone in expecting ease of use and reliability. Glad to see that Martin Geddes is on the same page.
Whoawaitasecond...
"Easy" isn't the same thing as "reliable".
Easy to use VoIP could be a POTS killer.
Reliable VoIP will never be a POTS killer.
Chatter, jitter, bounce, echo, delay, etc. are all part of VoIP and totally irrelevant to whether or not VoIP is going to continue to take off. The reliability people are looking for is with their basic network service (a fact that seems to be totally lost on Bell Canada). As long as my network service is reliable, I'm more than happy to replace my rock solid POTS with totally substandard VoIP because of the following reasons:
- I hate Bell. Probably as much as you hate your phone company.
- Vonage, Skype, etc - all the POTS alternatives are cheaper than Bell - both in terms of initial and ongoing costs.
- VoIP has way better features built into the basic bundle.
Most importantly, the main reason why consumers, like me, are going to flock to Vonage and Skype and their ilk just as fast as the internet flocked to Google from Altavista, Excite and Lycos is because Vonage and Skype actually want my business.
Your local phone company doesn't.
If VoIP is not useful, easy even, then the party is over. But I'm convinced that users are going to put up with a lot of jitter and other reliability issues simply because of the enhanced features and utility.
As long as the basic network service is reliable.
See this post as it first appeared on Blogware.
4 comments
Comments are closed - these are kept exactly as they were left.
Mark Evans, March 15, 2005
ross,
you are obviously a member of the unhappy masses looking for a viable alternative to incumbent service. the cablecos - along with vonage, skype, etc. - are counting on thousands of like-minded consumers to come on over when they get into the telephony business. If you look at how shaw has priced its new telephony service, it appears to be afraid of being swamped by demand - hence the $55 a month plan.
Ross, March 15, 2005
Is my bias *that* obvious? :)
VRTourist, March 15, 2005
How easy is it to use? I just attended a presentation by Telio ;-) It is easy enough for an 82 year old man to setup. VOIP is no worse than your cell phone. UTstarcom has a $100 VOIP/WiFi phone. You got a wireless network than it works. I am at CTIA where VOIP RULES!
Tim A, March 16, 2005
There is a fine line here somewhere. My views are based on experience using VoIP in replace of a land line for many weeks in a business environment.
I'd likely put up with a bit of bounce, echo, delay etc. on a personal call but not on a business call. There is nothing worse on a VoIP call than asking the party you are speaking with to repeat a phone number or something you need to hear clearly over and over and over again. It is embarrassing. In some instances I'd have to give up and get the information later. That is a VoIP killer right there. Game over.
On the personal side, the other issue is in the case of an emergency. I can be 99.999999% sure that my land line will get me to the service I need. With VoIP you'll be lucky to have 911 service at all and/or if you have an actual number to dial you better hope its reliable. I'm certainly not willing to sacrifice reliability in this case.
And again, based on experience just because you have a VoIP/WiFi phone and a wireless network that in no way means it just works. It may have just been the phone and useless directions I had but it took many many hours to get the settings correct.
I'm certainly going to continue playing around with VoIP and hoping that soon enough it is reliable enough to replace some POTS services with it.
I'm all for having choice in both the phone and broadband arena so I really hope if nothing else this shakes up both industries.