January 22, 2004

PSTN/VoIP Applications

Two recent news items appear not related on surface. But when I read them one after another, I get a different perspective of VoIP and PSTN. The first story indicates that Panama will treat VoIP and PSTN on an equal footing; the second story indicates that VoIP service providers will offer voice calling features that can’t be matched on traditional phones. This entry analyzes the feasibility of the last claim.

It is easy to see that governments would levy some form of “tax” on VoIP service providers in the guise of “technology agnosticism”. This has an air of fairness and the support of incumbents. I hasten to point out that I do not imply full regulatory regime, but I am commenting on the revenue sharing aspect alone. Alternatively, PSTN based service providers will be freed from their current revenue responsibilities. In any event, the tariffs for VoIP and PSTN will have parity. In my opinion, that is why many VoIP service providers would like to offer features that are not available to PSTN users. Are there such applications? The short answer is no. The one feature of VoIP that can not be replicated in PSTN is direct end-to-end session setup. But this implies there are no service providers. Almost all other features and services can be offered to PSTN users as well.

For example, the story starts with a feature offered by Rejection Hotline. Indeed this is currently available in PSTN. For VoicePulse to highlight this service indicates either a drought or somebody thought this is an easy way to draw a chuckle. If it is the latter, then they did not supply a more worthy example. Vonage’s example, Click to call is at least generally useful; but still doe not require VoIP. Vonage is planning to open up APIs, so that independent developers can build new applications. Interesting that “Intelligent Network” of PSTN is being revisited. If “thousand flowers are going to bloom” then how are we going to handle feature interaction?

Finally the article suggests that intelligence and bigger screens will be added to VoIP phones so that new features with better user interface can be offered. Of course PSTN tried that a few years back under the name of Analog Display Screen Interface (ADSI). The problem with it was the cost such terminals. With the current technology one can marry a low end PDA that sells for $25 or so to a cordless PSTN phone and realize an inexpensive ADSI phone. So it will be interesting to see feature war between PSTN and VoIP service providers.

Posted by aswath at January 22, 2004 05:09 PM
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Comments

I am doing research on PSTN. If u have any info on this or know where I should l
ook please email me!

Posted by: LaTonya at April 26, 2004 06:27 PM



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