Future of telecommunications

[sicnarftea]

I was sitting in a cafe with some friends when I started noticing that everyone is walking around with a mobile phone (or cell for americans) on their face. Some were SMS(or mms-ing) and others were just talking on it.

Then I was thinking, "What would the future of telecommunications be?". I know that Push to talk has been introduced to reduce price for using a phone, but is there an alternative way for communicating which would cut prices in half, if not more?

There are VOIP solutions for home phones, but unfortunately, there are no company actively promoting it within Australia. Funniest thing is Australia is such a multicultural society, and being a distant island, wouldn't we WANT some form of cheap international calling facility?

Currently, only the technically capable families have VOIP installed, and most of them are using Skype, but for the other families, they have resulted to use calling cards instead of the cheaper and faster alternatives.

Does anyone who knows more about telecommunications to figure out why people are not moving on to cheaper and better things? Atleast within austraila

[Brennan]

I'm from Australia aswell and I'm interested in were this topic is going, are you looking to promote VOIP in Australia? Well one of the main reasons not many people are using VOIP in Australia is because they don't even know what VOIP nor do they understand what it is.

[paul2145r]

There is a company coming online in the States- it will be utilizing VOIP-style communication integrated into cell phones. From what I've heard, Bill Gates is personally backing the venture. If it works out here, I'll bet it'll be over the pond and beyond within a couple of years.

[akula]

Does anyone who knows more about telecommunications to figure out why people are not moving on to cheaper and better things? Atleast within austraila

Very good question on a most important issue

The answers are in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm

Get in at Amazon

[sicnarftea]

I, for one, would be very interested in pushing VOIP within Australia, but seeing how expensive it is to start, it really makes we wonder if its worth it.

However, if VOIP does get successfully promoted, there will be a brand new market in Australia, away from the techies

[akula]

I hear what you're saying

this space is worth looking at

if you're up for it, set up a voip consultancy, contact the several dozen voip shops in Australia (i.e engin.com) and sell them your market research services

bank some pre payments and do a nationwide survey to gauge customer interest in voip. make a report, sell the report and you're in business

this way, you'll find out where the opportunity lies (i.e. enterprise vs. consumer voip), you'll have some capital to work with and enjoy the contacts you need to commercialize anything in this space

that's probably the risk efficient play you can try to get started in this market

[sicnarftea]

Pretty good idea, though market research is a very big task, and nothing for one man to take up

[freedom4life]

AUN - Austar United
Aussie Born, American Angel Saved... Has a secret, not so secret more like forgotten about. Remember back a few years Australian Government held an Auction for Spectrum, well Very smart Austar has been waiting for processing speeds,and ease of use to become, 'baby boomer friendly'. Late 2007, Austar / Soul and partners will start to use this 99%^ Coverage of Australian homes with better than 'The NeXt Generation' new network (T3). Australians, stand by for a Wireless TV and Multimedia, Telecommunications Hot Box working like as WiFi, it's everywhere. Whats better- VoIP VS Messenger? (cost = privacy?) nup.. I don't know and will skip VoIP for Video and Voice and data with drag n drop handling of 'Windows Vista' 'files'. We are connected, we are one. Australian. In 2007 all our devices merge into the Ultimate in Control. (^Issues of the future: Walking down the street and a prankster outside a shop front can control the images on the screens, like hacking of the future It'll be a new breed, possibly in Prams!) The goodside is I hope this answers your questions of VoIP in OZ. We deserve 10GB/Sec datatransfer in 07! (What if the public community share their connections and resell... and eventually noone ends up paying for the internet at all? The spectrum is like space, will be there for-ever now it is created. Companies will survive thanks to Direct Debits and Subscriptions on Autopay. 1% of their customers die, what % remains on Direct Debit? Links forever to the internet if left in 'Wills'

Cheers All - Have a fruitful week!
Christian
P.S. I worked at Austar years ago and have my story of before, during and after Austar in my liveJournal at freedom4life.com

[akula]

AUN - Austar United
Aussie Born, American Angel Saved... Has a secret, not so secret more like forgotten about. Remember back a few years Australian Government held an Auction for Spectrum, well Very smart Austar has been waiting for processing speeds,and ease of use to become, 'baby boomer friendly'. Late 2007, Austar / Soul and partners will start to use this 99%^ Coverage of Australian homes with better than 'The NeXt Generation' new network (T3). Australians, stand by for a Wireless TV and Multimedia, Telecommunications Hot Box working like as WiFi, it's everywhere. Whats better- VoIP VS Messenger? (cost = privacy?) nup.. I don't know and will skip VoIP for Video and Voice and data with drag n drop handling of 'Windows Vista' 'files'. We are connected, we are one. Australian. In 2007 all our devices merge into the Ultimate in Control. (^Issues of the future: Walking down the street and a prankster outside a shop front can control the images on the screens, like hacking of the future It'll be a new breed, possibly in Prams!) The goodside is I hope this answers your questions of VoIP in OZ. We deserve 10GB/Sec datatransfer in 07! (What if the public community share their connections and resell... and eventually noone ends up paying for the internet at all? The spectrum is like space, will be there for-ever now it is created. Companies will survive thanks to Direct Debits and Subscriptions on Autopay. 1% of their customers die, what % remains on Direct Debit? Links forever to the internet if left in 'Wills'

Cheers All - Have a fruitful week!
Christian
P.S. I worked at Austar years ago and have my story of before, during and after Austar in my liveJournal at freedom4life.com

mate, u've totally fallen off the perch

i can't understand a word u're saying

[rossco1]

ENGIN

http://www.ENGIN.com.au

They look to have taken advantage of what you are trying to pursue. Take a look, very interesting business!

[Sam Barona]

To run a VOIP company you need to buy bandwidth from a badwidth wholesaler. This is extremely cheap (less than 0.5 cents) per unit.

If you develop a consumer offering, carry out some primary research to base some projections on; negotiate a bandwith deal based on the projections; secure a partner that can supply the hardware; get a seasoned management team in place; and then take all this to VCs; then you might just have a viable multi-billion empire.

Alternatively, you can just resell existing offerings.

VOIP is changing the Telecomms market, and the provision of this will be based on bandwith consumption, so Telcos will become more and more like conventional utility companies.

However, there is also another, more fundamental change around the corner; and this is e-payments. You, in the near future will be able to pay for anything using your mobile phone; even peer to peer transactions using secure BlueTooth. This enabling technology will mean that Telcos will be ideally placed to replace banks and even credit card companies. so we could all end up running our current acocunts through our Telco.

This is my vision of the future for telecommunication companies. As for telecommunications themselves, you can expect mini projectors that will show you 3-D renditions of the person calling you in the medium term.

Longer term, I was privvy to some outstanding research from the guys at MIT, who are researching nano transmitters and receivers for military use. Thus, a nano sized transmitter and receiver will be placed in your brain, so that you the voice in your head will really be someone elses.

This, together with Microsoft's patented Personal Area Network (a computer embedded in the person that uses skin to transfer data) will result in a headache for change adverse mortals, and vast opportunities for those who want to develop anti hacking, intrussion detection and anti virus solutions for nano scale communications.

Sorry, did I go a little too far into the future?

Sam

[akula]

haha. no, that's lovely :-) and let's not even mention the recent breakthroughs in teleportation

whilst I do have some reservations about nano sized cranium transmitters; I'm prepared to make the bet that voip is a technology ready for commercialisation

I'd say the same thing about 3D signage that you guys are into...