Sunday, March 15. 2009Telstra (et alia et ceteri) Delenda Est.........John Linton .......and Google may be the 'chosen instrument of the Lord' in accomplishing that. I think it's obvious to most people in the communications industry that VoIP has long passed the 'curiosity' stage for the 'technically adept' and has become a 'main stream' service that will now much more quickly wipe out the use of expensive and 'so 19th Century' telephone calls over 'wires'. Apart from Telstra and Optus it seems that most if not all Australian communications providers (except for the very small or the very technically inept companies) are offering their own VoIP services based on direct connections to one or more major carriers. Certainly a small company such as Exetel's 'take up' of "naked" ADSL2 is an indication of the general market place's acceptance of VoIP as a 'main stream' telephone service and many communication providers offer the transfer of a customers PSTN number to their VoIP service at less delay and pain than some year or so ago. Hopefully Exetel will be able to do that soon and when that is available we would expect to see an immediate increase in customers using our VoIP services. Similarly, as we near the completion of our VoIP over HSPA code development (which I have been successfully using in its basic form now for some 3 weeks) we would expect to see a major increase in our mobile customers using VoIP and making the huge savings available from that service. This will need the cost of HSPA hand sets to fall but that will happen over time as no-one will want a mobile phone that doesn't have a data capability. This article underlines why VoIP will very quickly replace wire line telephone numbers from now onwards: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/technology/personaltech/12pogue.html?_r=2 not just because of the cost savings but because of the quantum leap in functionality. Now, Google being the gigantic company that it is and with the vision and ability to not ony see the ten year future of communicaons but to have the will and the money to make no immediate pay back/very long term investments can afford to offer these services for 'free' and will therefore soon attract millions of users and then tens of millions of users and then.......well, they will likely wipe out 'conventional' telephone carriers before the end of the next decade. In our small way, and with a millionth of the boldness of vision (and a billionth of the money) Exetel saw the same future as Google (and, I assume, many others) and have been slowly developing our own 'unified communications' service and have put almost all of the 'building blocks' in place: Low cost IP, our own VoIP switches, Layer 2 HSPA/mobile connection services, FAX over VoIP, SMS over VoIP, low cost international calls over VoIP, a comprehensive, easy to use, back end user interface and several other processes currently being developed. Once we get the PSTN number porting in place we can offer exactly the same end user services that are described in the referenced article - with none of the 'gloss' but with virtually all of the functionality - we can always put the 'gloss' on later. I am not, for one moment, claiming that any of what we have done couldn't be duplicated in the proverbial 'blink of an eye' by any other company of our size and above - I have no doubt it could be and that it could probably be done better than we have done it........except for one thing.......the same thing that will prevent Telstra or Optus doing it in any meaningful time frame.......it isn't in their established revenue and infrastructure's investment's best interests to do it at all. We started this development program almost 4 years ago (shortly after a new Telstra CEO under lined the stupidity of basing a business on wholesale Telstra services by immediately removing the highly competent GM of Telstra Wholesale, down grading the position and describing Telstra Wholesale customers as "parasites". It was pretty obvious that products and services based on Telstra's infrastructure or exchange access had no long term future and we had better plan a future for Exetel that provided end user services by other means. So, as far as I can see, this latest Google initiative will not be of significant interest to any company that relies on its own wire line infrastructure, of any sort, for a significant portion of its revenues and profits - why spend a lot of money developing a service that obsoletes your current investments and produces less revenue and profit? Let alone having to compete with a company that has built a multi billion dollar company by providing 'free' services - it must be Telstra's worst nightmare. What it may well do, or what some four years ago we saw it doing, is to allow companies like Exetel to continue to build a service offering that relies on nothing other than our own programming and engineering skills and our abilities to continue to maintain and develop supplier relationships that we have largely put in place over the past few years with companies other than Telstra or any company that relies on Telstra and therefore on Telstra's bloated pricing policies and predatory marketing 'promotions'. My original thoughts when we began these developments was that they would work better in the EU than in Australia. However that may not still be true and in any case we have amost completed the 'product set' required to sensibly offer a 'better than Google' "unified messaging" system in Australia some time in the second half of 2009 - with a bit of luck and not too many things going wrong in these uncertain times. It will be an interesting few years in communications - not since Motorola's brilliantly and boldly conceived, but doomed, iridium project has such a sensible leap forward in personal communications capabilities been so completely articulated by a commercial company with the ability to actually deliver on it. Trackbacks
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John,
with regard to HSPA broadband there is still one critical part of the equation missing, an integrated HSPA modem / 4 port router / wireless / and an integrated ata. I saw a week or two ago that you may have sourced a suitable HSPA unit, this is the missing puzzle piece without this missing part, VoIP will not kick off in the home environment to the extent it should do. are we any closer to the HSPA modem ,VoIP router / ata --- this is the big chance to bypass Telstra forever. It really needs to be an integrated solution, like the billion 7400 series modems / ata for adsl.. Comments (2)
We are a little closer to finding the 'magic box'.
However there will be a plethora of such boxes efore the end of this calendar year. Comments (8)
While you are ubdoubtedly correct it would be 'cheating if I actually checked my "quotations".
I can't remamber the full quote and I'm not going to look it up and, like you, 50 years does take its toll of anyone's memory. (I actually didn't ascribe my 'expanded' quote to Scipio this time as, before your timely reminder, I had remembered I had previously ascribed it incorrectly). My various quotes (quite likely equally erroneously recalled) are only intended to introduce levity - not as 'scholarly' insight. Comments (8)
As well as the magic router for home use VoIP over HSPA, the other big moment for hardware that will make the VoIP revolution complete, will be an affordable HSPA mobile phone.
Have you ever thought about 'providing' HSPA mobile phone handsets for sale, or would that be opening another unwanted can of worms? Comment (1)
We did, briefly,because Huawei were offering a retty well featured phone at a wholesale price of sub $US200.00.
However it seemed to us that the technology was going to move quickly and it wouldn't be long before the major hand set manufacturers would meet the popular price points - around 2nd quarter 2009. Comments (8)
Are these Huawei phones available now?
What model were you looking at? There are no Huawei phones listed in the "Exetel HSPA Compatiblity List" at the moment. Comment (1)
We tried them and they worked well - but we aren't in that business and we had a distinct feeling that Huawei were not going to stay in that market.
We returned the test units some time ago. Comments (8)
Am I missing something or does the Billion 7404VGPX not fit this criteria? Sure it doesn't integrate the modem as well, but plugging in a USB modem isn't such a drama is it? Available from as little as $217, even after paying for the modem, it will pay for itself in just a few months.
Comment (1)
You aren't missing anything.
However, to ensure the cost is kept as low as possible we are looking for a box with a sim socket that removes the cost of the 'stick'. Comments (8)
'not just because of the cost savings but because of the quantum leap in functionality.'
FYI, Quantum is actually the smallest amount! I'm sure you mean to say huge leap in functionality? Comments (2)
Main Entry:
quantum leap Function: noun Date: 1956 : an abrupt change, sudden increase, or dramatic advance (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quantum+leap) Comment (1)
Hi Col,
I can assure you that quantum is the smallest physical change that can be made, it is a common mistake to thing that it defines 'big' when it actually means 'small' Quantum defines the smallest amount that can exist independently, A link that describes it http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_a_quantum_leap but thats a subject for another day Comments (2)
John,
My personal view of Telstra is they are like the Vampire of Telecomunications / Broadband bleeding everyone dry. The HSPA / Magic box will be like the wooden stake which we can subdue this beast forever. I cant wait to start hammering the wooden stake / HSPA magic box home. Comments (2)
So far as I can see, Exetel are at the forefront of this in Australia. Hell, type in 'HSPA voip' into google.com.au and look at the results. Having follower from your initial blog post about voip over HSPA, I cannot say I have found anyone doing what your company is doing. And to know that you will develop it further is excellent.
Just one more reason to choose exetel, a relatively progressive ISP. Comment (1)
'Hell, type in 'HSPA voip' into google.com.au and look at the results.'
Input '*HSDPA* voip' to a search engine and you will discover many more entries! Comment (1)
JL, please fix up your classics!!!! You are causing the recall from oblivion of painful memories.
You and I are likely the only ones here who ever experienced the adolescent joys of a Latin class. Like other extreme mistreatment it can always be summoned back. 50+ years later, dammit, and you call it up! North and Rev Dr Hillard and all! I am grating at the errors, so what are you doing to my mind, because they stand out like canine anatomy? It was Cato who is supposed to have made a mantra of Carthago delenda est (deleo,evi,etum = root out). It was Scipio wot dun it. And now you bring back gerunds and gerundives of obligation and other stuff I hoped to forget; the phrase is singular - you can't add extra subjects, or delenda goes plural and so does est. I wonder what happened to the unloved Latin master - he must have earned his pay after all. Comment (1)
You're undoubtedly correct but I never check my quotes - this is a casual random thoughts effort with no pretensions to scholarship and, as you say, 50 passing years do terrible things to most people's memory.
I actually did 'remember' that I had ascribed the quote incorrectly in the past (which I didn't this time as I also bowdlerised it and I never could remember where 'esse' went or the other words. So, please indulge my attempts at levity and hopefully they encourage some people to re-acquaint themselves with the sources of the many things that I get wrong so that they don't make the same mistakes. Comments (8)
You and I are likely the only ones here who ever experienced the adolescent joys of a Latin class
If you really believe that, you're having yourself on. Comment (1)
Of course I'm having myself on.....
And I also confess that sinfully I did rather well at it at the time, which is probably why it comes back after so many years. It was never done to admit any interest in the schoolyard though. Comments (2)
I'm in two minds about HSPA VoIP. It works, but in the case of Mobile Phones, it's jut re-inventing the wheel since they're already VoIP over a packet-based network.
With one GSM provider now offering rates down to around 7c per minute to call landlines and mobiles; which is less than half the rate that VoIP costs to call mobiles, it makes the 'hassle' of HSPA VoIP not so attractive. Perhaps said GSM provider is being a loss leader; but it shows that it wouldn't be too hard for the HSPA VoIP world (or indeed any VoIP world) to be undermined if the networks chose to match the rates. (On the other hand, VoIP will likely force them to do so anyway.) I still await the magic box nonetheless Comments (2)
As you say there is no reason that a mobile carrier wouldn't offer a competing rate to a VoIP solution from another provider apart from the fact that their gigantic profits come from their current business model which is based on charging their current rates.
Currently VoIP has less than one thousandth of 1% of mobie minutes but as it grows the 'mobile rates' (and you seem to forget the mobile 'call connection fees which generate most of the profit) will begin to fall. However - my brief musing was directed at the faster demise of the wire line networks - if the major carriers combat the current miniscule inroads of VoIP with VoIP like pricing then - mission accomplished by the competitve process. Comments (8)
"...and you seem to forget the mobile 'call connection' fees which generate most of the profit"
Not forgotten The 7c figure was at the peak of value point (for the consumer) on one of those crazy 'cap' plans. I had a call from an HSPA customer yesterday who was using x-lite and a headset. Very clear - almost too clear really as I could hear the whistling of his asthma in my ear! "if the major carriers combat the current miniscule inroads of VoIP with VoIP like pricing then - mission accomplished by the competitve process." Agreed Comments (2)
"3" says here that 263 terabytes per month passes through them.
Any idea what the other carriers transfer? Out of curiosity what's Exetel's mobile users up to in usage per month? Comments (2)
I have absolutely no idea what current traffic transits the mobile carrier's networks.
Exetel accounts for less than 5,000 gb at the moment Comments (8)
Hrm.. .appears my link is missing...
Trying again: http://www.smh.com.au/news/digital-life/mobiles--handhelds/articles/the-shocking-cost-of-smartphones/2009/03/16/1237054630965.html Comments (2)
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