AT&T's CallVantage service gets put through the paces by the New York Times.
What I don't get is the reporter's reference to the word modem. A modem modulates and demodulates, and no part of the D-Link Telephone Adapter which AT&T provides does that. The closest thing it does is serve as an analog to digital converter, so while the concept of a modem is likely more common, the fact that it works in front of a router and behind a cable modem could be confusing to some readers.
I also chuckle at the calling of Verizon a rival. While they may compete in certain ways, the VoiceWing service is not what CallVantage is. AT&T built CallVantage from the ground up. Their network. Their own technology. Verizon is using Delta Three's network and a hodge podge of technology to power their network.
The reporter also calls into question AT&T's mass market media strategy. In talking yesterday with Huw Rees, VP of Marketing for Packet 8, he did some analysis of Vonage's online ad spend rate and pegged it at $80 million a year right now. Packet 8 is launching a subway exit billboard and radio campaign in New York City and a television campaign in the Bay Area. Seems they are going to follow the AT&T media approach and blend online and mass media to reach the public, but at a much lower budget than either Vonage or AT&T.
Last time I checked telephone service was a mass market service and to reach the mass market requires two things. Distribution (Best Buy, Amazon and more to come) that is on Target, and mass media advertising on a national level, backed up by very targeted marketing efforts (i.e. online and direct marketing) both of which AT&T already seems to be doing. The broadband cable and DSL market is only getting larger and that's why AT&T and AOL are both going after it.
In the close of the article, the reporter brings out the fact that the cooperative cable companies working with AT&T are also likely competitors. Reports out of Boulder Colorado are that that Comcast will be pushing VoIP there in early 2005. I know from insiders at Comcast that they are going to be pushing VoIP too.
Let the games begin.
It took some time, but the old telephone companies begin to understand VoIP is a real threat.
But I do not believe in their efforts and mostly I cannot believe they would never be succesful.
It is like putting lipstick on a Gorilla.
The Gorilla is their old business model with millions of employees, expensive infrastructures and high salaries (to their CEOs)
VoIP is a revolution, more in the business model than in the infrastructures.
In principle, just sending voice as data is not a big revolution in itself.
What is and will be a real revolution is the big change of "Players" in the market.
When the infrastructures are so cheap to be affordable to almost any entrepreneur, when the running of them is so simple to be affordable also to the "non great Techies" the market is open to all and the winners won't be the ones with most means, but the ones with most means in their brains.
That is to say, if the Network is a stupid one (and getting more and more inexpensive), where do you make money from?
Virtual reality and its deployment has given back the market to the best players, not the ones who can raise more money, but the ones who are able to make the best use of it.
I often compare the Internet revolution to the French revolution.
In principle they will bring the same changes on the market scene:
No more Kings and Nobles(big corporations), but an intelligent middle class, with little means but great ideas.
Well at least the World is getting a little bit more interesting...
Patrizia
Posted by: Patrizia | August 30, 2004 at 02:01 AM