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What if voice were free?

March 16, 2004 - 1:06am — bmann

Lots of hype about the recent funding of Skype to the tune of $18M US. Yes, part of this is the classic "let's run with this and look for a business model later". But let's not forget that Skype is a true disruptor:

If recent announcements are correct then we will see the capability for Skype to Phone (as in PSTN). There is a general assumption that Skype will have to charge for calls into the local phone network or to a local cellphone. I believe their intent will be to make such calls free.

Unbound Spiral: Skype Xfire Presence

Comparisons are being made to Hotmail, which was one of the first free email providers. Now for the punch line: email is now essentially free (nevermind the part about how many would also now gladly pay for virus- and spam-free email -- that's the other side of the curve).

I think that Skype could very easily and cheaply build out VoIP gateways with nothing more than a couple of local phone lines and some Linux gear.

Comments

March 19, 2004 - 12:56pm — bmann

Telepocalypse is having simil

Telepocalypse is having similar free voice thoughts:

I was reading about Skype’s business plans and had an evil thought. A lot of those PCs on the Skype network have a back-up dial-up modem connection as well as broadband connection. If my wife wants to call a friend in Lithuania (usual price from USA: 14 cents/minute), why can’t she just Skype her parents’ PC in Vilnius which would then bridge her into a local-rate PSTN call? Obviously, only nodes that trust you would be willing to let you place calls with their outbound caller ID, but it would totally undermine the economics of long-distance toll calls. The phone company can’t detect it, even if they tried to outlaw it.

This would of course not be very robust (someone might pick up the phone, it could be busy, etc.), but it would be free (which is often a huge motivator). Also, some privacy issues (you really need to trust the "other end" that your call is going over), but those are solvable issues. Since I no longer have a landline, I couldn't be a part of this network. But, interconnects between VoIP systems might serve the same purpose -- sharing each others' POPs.

March 16, 2004 - 3:25am — GSoo

hard to forget a fascinating div6 analysis...

which in 1998 showed that a single Alpha server can realistically handle several times the global requirement for PSTN call control. Aside from trying their best to ignore it (for example, how many people actually saw that report?), I think it set them to find ways to build the slowest call server possible, at which they may have succeeded.
The question asked of the researcher was: if we did call-control in a computer, how many computers would be required? The answer was so shocking no one there wanted to believe it.
BTW, email has always been essentialy free, at least in my experiene.

March 18, 2004 - 7:54pm — jason

what other hardware is required?

I think of the cpu in a phone switch as being like Richard Pryor at the helm of that supercomputer in Superman III, with cables twisting out to engulf Annie Ross and turn her skull into an laser-shooting optical router. The question is, how many Annie Rosses would we need to handle all the phone traffic in the world?

March 19, 2004 - 11:13pm — GSoo

it depends how long her arms are

the analysis assumed a perfectly transparent network and focused on computational requirements.
Since networks are never perfect, and politics demand regional control over communications, you'd always have local call-control.
What it clearly showed was that call control is relatively trivial and free to do, and wieldng it to enforce a tax on our communications has little basis in reality - only bases in politics and greed.