Disruptive Telephony

We are in the midst of a truly fascinating cultural shift right now:

We are losing the "family identity" that has been the main characteristic of telephony for the past 100 years.

Think about it... the other day we were at an evening event and met a great couple with whom we would like to stay in touch. We exchanged contact info and they, like so many people these days, have "cut the cord" and do not have a traditional landline but instead have individual mobile phones. The result is this:

I can't call the "Smiths" and speak to someone.

Instead I can call "John Smith" or "Jane Smith".

If I have a message I want to get to the family I have no simple way to do that. I can no longer call "the family phone" and leave a message on their answering machine inviting them over to dinner.

Instead I need to call one of the individual phones - and perhaps both to be sure the message gets through, given that cell phones can be lost or need recharging or that sometimes voicemail messages simply don't get through.

And if a young child wants to call a young child at a landline-less home - and the receiving child doesn't yet have their own cell phone - you have to guess which parent the child might be with.

Now, I don't expect this situation to change. Two years ago I wrote at great length about why I was thinking of cutting the cord myself (and then about why I kept my landline). Last year I wrote about the decline in the landline business in North America and while I haven't checked the most recent stats on landline decline, my own anecdotal evidence tells me that the decline is only continuing. I, too, continue to periodically re-assess whether I want to still keep the landline intact.

It's interesting to wonder, though, what this means for the larger fabric of our society. Are there impacts as we remove the "family" identity and focus on our individual identities? How does it change the nature of communication between families? Or does it not really change things at all?

I don't have the answers... this is probably a longer-term research project some graduate student needs to take on. Still, I wonder...

Meanwhile, since I know in one family that one cell phone died and the voicemail is full on the other phone, I guess I'll have to forget about the phone entirely and just send them a message on Facebook... ;-)

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As readers know, I recently wrote about how upgrading my iPhone 3G to iOS 4.0 was one of the dumbest things I've done and also recently linked to Lifehacker's post about downgrading your iPhone 3G. So naturally you can expect that I'd be amused by this recent parody of Apple's commercial:

Sadly, it's far too true... (although I haven't yet personally experienced the issue with not being able to accept a call)

Kudos to "adamburtle" for putting the video together.

P.S. I learned of this video through the ZDNet article, Apple should advise against upgrading iPhone 3G to iOS4... and yes, Apple should make it clear that you will severely degrade the performance of your iPhone 3G by "upgrading" it.

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As I wrote before, I made a serious mistake in upgrading my iPhone 3G to the new iOS 4.0. Now, courtesy of LifeHacker, we who made that mistake now have a path backwards:

How to Downgrade Your iPhone 3G[S] from iOS 4 to iOS 3.1.3

The process looks a little bit involved, but not terribly difficult.

I haven't decided whether I'll go through the process myself, but I think I'll at least download the relevant files so that I can go through the process if I want to.

Thanks, LifeHacker, for giving us a path back to a better performing iPhone!

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Will you be at the SpeechTEK conference in New York August 2-4? If so, I'll be down there as part of the Voxeo team staffing our booth and speaking on Monday about unified communications security (related to my book). Details can be found on the Voxeo Event page for SpeechTEK 2010, including a discount code.

SpeechTEK was honestly a show I'd not attended prior to joining Voxeo some 2.5 years ago. It's a smaller show, focused on the speech and voice/IVR industry, which is obviously where Voxeo started and continues to have an incredibly strong presence. Excellent community of people and a great agenda of sessions, case studies, technology deep-dives and much more.

SpeechTEK is also the show we use at Voxeo as an annual organizing event to make major announcements... and so naturally we have a number of great announcements in the works. ;-)

Will be fun... and I'm looking forward to seeing folks down there.

P.S. If you are in the media or a blogger and want to get advance briefing on our announcements, please email me. Thanks.

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Would you like to learn more about OpenID and how it can help with your online identity? Last night in the midst of a intense discussion about OpenID in a Skype chat room, I discovered this site- OpenID Explained:

It's a well-done site that clearly and simply lays out the problem OpenID is trying to solve, discusses how you can get an OpenID (and has a great discussion about what to look for in an OpenID provider and things to think about in choosing one), and shows you typically go through the OpenID login process.

It's not a new site.. it seems to have been around for a while... it's just one I hadn't come across in my various writing about OpenID and identity issues (scroll down a bit to get to the OpenID posts).

I particularly liked this graphic, as it so nicely captures the intent of using OpenID to reduce the number of user account info you have to remember (click on the image to go to the page with the full-size version):

The site does need a couple of very minor updates... for instance, the link on the text "over 27,000 OpenID-enabled sites" takes you to a place on a Wikipedia page where whatever list may have been there seems to have been removed. The "Use" page also embeds Simon Willison's much-referenced OpenID tutorial video from 2006, which is a great introduction video - but unfortunately the example site it references is WikiTravel and when I tried logging in there several times with OpenID I was unable to create an account on the site.

Regardless of those minor nits, it's a well-done site and one that is a good resource if you are looking to learn about how OpenID can potentially help you.

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Today mobile startup Fring is in the news for their claim that Skype is blocking access for video calls to and from Skype users. Fring issued a news release and wrote a rather inflammatory blog post which has garnered them coverage on TechCrunch and many other sites. With typical David vs. Goliath fervor, much of the reporting so far seems to have favored the small startup Fring fighting for connectivity with big company Skype.

It seems the situation isn't so clear. Skype's legal chiefVP of Legal, Robert Miller, fired back with his own blog post which included these lines (to which I added emphasis):

An hour or so ago, Fring reported on their blog that we had blocked their access to Skype. I want to make one thing absolutely clear: this is untrue....

In this case, however, there is no truth to Fring’s claims that Skype has blocked it. Fring made the decision to remove Skype functionality on its own.

This, coming from Skype's legal headVP of Legal, would seem to be a rather definitive statement.[1]

Over on his VoIPWatch blog, Andy Abramson wrote on Saturday, related to Fring's suspension of Skype video due to capacity issues, this:

Plain and simply, Fring has a capacity issue. This is why Skype was smart to take their "wait and see" position on interoperability with FaceTime.

... Bridging requires skill, expertise and capacity management. And it has a price. So while the Frings of the world may think they can go out and simply cross connect and transcode, the real secret to satisfaction is in keeping it up.

It all does cause one to wonder:

• Is the issue really that Fring does not have the capacity to truly support Skype video from iPhone 4s?
• Is Fring seeking to use its apparent ongoing legal issues with Skype as the rationale to avoid adding capacity?
• Or is this more of a marketing ploy to try to get more people to sign up directly as fring users?

What is the truth, Fring?

P.S. Please don't misunderstand me... I'm a huge advocate for the "open Internet" and would definitely like to see Skype open up their walled garden more - and applaud the moves they've made to date, while still wanting more. Normally I'd find myself siding with Fring on this... but at least from what Skype is saying, the situation seems much deeper...

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[1] UPDATE: It was pointed out to me after I published this post that Robert Miller is still Skype's VP of Legal but no longer the "legal chief" as he has a new boss.

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