Comments: Taking on Telio

Technically, yes ... but if we take "PSTN" to be the wider system, including the pricing models, interconnect, settlement, etc -- then we can see that progress is basically impossible. How to get consensual agreement on a new feature being deployed? There's no possibility of incremental exploration of features that impact 2 calling parties, for example. A Vonage, Skype or PhoneGnome do allow such innovation (although not all choose to execure on it). Also, VoIP does make it technically simpler to unbundle the components of the service (e.g. select your own voicemail) - it's just a different URI in the config file, not a software update to a thousand switches needing a ton of systems management.

That said, it is amazing how feeble the telcos have been in improving the voice product, even when in vigorous competition (e.g. in cellular).

Posted by Martin Geddes at June 4, 2006 03:52 AM