Great comments, all around – and Tim – you’re probably got it as close to right as Ken and I ever will.

Although I’m taking the opposite side on this, thanks Ken for putting this out there. It’s really helping me understand where I stand – I owe you one for that. At eTel – the first three beers are on me!

Thomas

Ken is talking about the vast bulk of minutes used in ‘social’ communications.

Tom is talking about high value ‘business’ minutes.
It just so happens
that these minutes are (pretty much) un-differentiated (and served by the same carriers) at the moment.

It is pretty clear to me that in the future these classes of minutes will split with wildly differing services, rules etc.

The social minutes will trend to zero (incremental) cost, they will be facilitated by online channels such as facebook, and increasingly they will have groups of participants – many on speakerphones and provided by
startups bulk buying telco bandwidth (like the MVNOs of today).

The business minutes will settle at (sticks neck out here) 10c/min – they will be HD audio, with automatic (notarized) call recording, guaranteed provenance (like ANI on 800 numbers). The calls will be tagged with their origin and topic and integrated into the business processes (CRM etc), they will be searchable. These services will be provided by existing players such as BT/Ribbit .

Telcos allowed us to communicate in real time when there was no alternative other than face to face meetings.

But our world has changed. Dramatically. We now have tons of choices to electronically interact. Websites, Twitter, email, SMS, to name a few.

The Telco model is all about voice and voice just isn’t that important any more. In fact, it is becoming the electronic method we use when no others are available.

Voice isn’t dead and has a long life ahead of us, but it isn’t as important as it used to be, and neither are the telcos.

Aswath – I guess I’ll argue they were magnificent revenue protection technologies. Sure they were innovations. I’ll revise to say the transistor was the last revolutionary innovation. All those others were incremental “draw between the lines” stay inside the box incremental improvments and advances in technologies the telcos already had sewed up better than anyone else. Noteworthy yes. Revolutionary no. Incremental improvements, even digital carrier systems were just a larger incremental improvement.

I am assuming that you were in jest when you said that telcos haven’t innovated since transistor. Digital transmission doesn’t rate one? How about data modem? Fax modem? Why be dismissive about Caller ID? I would say delivery over the tip and ring interface required innovation. I could keep adding to the list.

Telco needs to step outside the box or the box will step outside of them. They are facing countless options and viable alternatives that the public never had in the entire history of telco. My opinion is that telco needs to embrace the new technologies and media and step up their game before the telco game is over for good.

You said “Telco like water or power is an ongoing revolution. You took the perfect example.
Power is the #1 innovation industry and despite all efforts since Thomas Edison no one found a cheap, renewable, cordless power source. But believe – they are trying.” I have to tell you that you picked perhaps the worst flawed comparison you could have.

It’s probably worth mentioning that in my day job I’m the principal network systems architect for a major global player in the utility market. A hufe piece of that is power. And yes, while they are trying to make improvements, I’d argue they’re doing so to hold tighter control over customers and drag even more money out of something that’s clinging to the past. It’s an industry that could be doing much more to look to the future of energy consumption, but rather looks at how to protect the revenue stream they have today while making teensy incremental changes. It’s a sector I get a view of that most of us dabbling in communications space won’t ever see.

That industry is fraught with the same problems of the telco industry, for as many years. The advantage they have is that, for the most part, their bailout is guaranteed. In many cases, it’s already in place. Regulated monopoly market based on geography. That’s not a business model I believe is sustainable in the global information economy. And I don’t really believe the power industry is doing much to innovate.

I don’t believe the telco industry is the big innovators of the last 50 years like you said. I believe the last compelling innovation we saw from that industry was the transistor in 1947. That’s 62 years since any powerful and compelling innovation. So I’d say the reverse. You say they’re the most innovative. I say the telco industry has been comatose for over 50 years.

And in my experience, with the major players, the ones who shaped and molded the industry, R&D is a joke. R&D is in innovators, entrepreneurs, startups and small niches. And those niche innovators are under-serving themselves by hanging on to the old paradigm. That’s my point that’s not being heard.

Innovation is NOT happening in the telcos. It hasn’t in well over 50 years. Unless you count CallerID as a real innovation. But remember, that was just selling the customer something they already had and convincing customers to pay for it.

Ain’t conversation grand??

I agree more could be done. But Telco is a sensible industry where there is no Alpha, or Beta. Telco is binded to an obligation of results. No failure can be accepted. Its not very attractive for entrepreneurs – can you imagine your home phone service working like Twitter. A small whale ringtone when service is down

Ken – Telco is one of the most advanced, innovative industry. You’d be amazed to see what is cooking in R&D labs. Simply it takes time to validate a model, implement it and market it.

I agree- Telco x.0 is so 2008.

You said “Main actors of this industry would perfectly fit in your description but not the industry itself.”

If the main actors, the ones who shape and define the industry fit, then it seems to me the industry fits. And it seems to me that the companies trying to change the industry are really trying to fit within an existing paradigm rather than create a new one. That’s where I think the problem lies. I think too many people/companies are trying to fit within the constraints (both real and artifical) of the telco industry paradigm.

Sure Apple changed the game, but not the telco game. iPhone revenue isn’t a dro pin the bucket of the traditional telco paradigm. It’s really negligible on the grand scale. iphone changed the handset paradigm, absolutely. And it’s shifted attention on the handset usage model (more data), but those are still teensy incremental changes to the telecom industry model.

We agree Telco 2.0 is a stillborn baby, but I don’t agree that Telco 3.0, or Telco anything is a good next model. I think it still ties us to the past.

Telco is simply a utility like water or power. And I still believe we’re thinking in outdated terms.

THanks for taking time to comment. I hope we get some face-to-face time again soon to chat about it. That would be a blast.

Is twitter the birth of a new PS(T)N?

Are twitter clients the new PBX

Matt