While Jeff Pulver may be trying to reinvigorate his VON franchise by changing the V to Video, I think there is still much to be done with voice. Not that there isn’t a lot of interesting work to be done with video, given its special data characteristics – it’s just that we have still barely scratched the surface with voice over IP services.
Andrew Hansen used an interesting term – PoIP – in his comment on my weekend posting. Too many service providers – or just plain confused customers – seem to be using POTS over IP: Plain Old Telephone Service over Internet Protocol. Many customers are swapping out their phone lines or PBXs and just putting in VoIP technology without any change in the way they are doing business. If you are just going to use your new equipment the same old way as before, then I think you are wasting time and energy going through a change.
It might explain why the CRTC thinks that VoIP is the same as POTS and it has therefore been continuing to apply the same regulatory framework to VoIP as it has to POTS. In the eyes of the CRTC, it’s just a different engine purring under the hood.
For all of the talk that VoIP transforms Voice into another computer application, the industry itself hasn’t done a great job promoting new services with all sorts of new capabilities.
If all we are doing is selling VoIP because “it’s cheaper” then we are wasting a lot of time and energy. There is a session at The 2006 Canadian Telecom Summit looking at Next Generation Voice and another talking to the leaders of today’s VoIP service. Another session will include the heads of Consumer Services for all of Canada’s leading carriers and yet another features the leaders of Business Services.
The Canadian Telecom Summit covers the full range of XoIP – Voice or Video – and looks at all of the issues, including Community Broadband outreach and dealing with the scourge of illegal content. It’s the only conference you need to attend.