Why AT&T Killed Google Voice

A very interesting opinion piece in today's Wall Street Journal is entitled why AT&T Killed Google Voice, and it was written, not by a reporter but by a hedge fund manager.

I happen to agree with the majority of it, especially the points he makes in italics with my comments in CAPS:

• End phone exclusivity. Any device should work on any network. Data flows freely.-THIS SMACKS OF GOOGLE AND THEIR LOBBYING WORK.

• Transition away from "owning" airwaves. As we've seen with license-free bandwidth via Wi-Fi networking, we can share the airwaves without interfering with each other. Let new carriers emerge based on quality of service rather than spectrum owned. Cellphone coverage from huge cell towers will naturally migrate seamlessly into offices and even homes via Wi-Fi networking. No more dropped calls in the bathroom.-THIS IS GREAT NEWS FOR CISCO.

• End municipal exclusivity deals for cable companies. TV channels are like voice pipes, part of an era that is about to pass. A little competition for cable will help the transition to paying for shows instead of overpaying for little-watched networks. Competition brings de facto network neutrality and open access (if you don't like one service blocking apps, use another), thus one less set of artificial rules to be gamed.-THIS IS IDEAL FOR EMERGING COMPANIES WHO WANT TO BE THE NEXT BIG THING. WE HAD THIS WITH DSL PROVIDERS UNTIL THE BIG TELCOS CHOKED THEM OFF.

• Encourage faster and faster data connections to our homes and phones. It should more than double every two years. To homes, five megabits today should be 10 megabits in 2011, 25 megabits in 2013 and 100 megabits in 2017. These data-connection speeds are technically doable today, with obsolete voice and video policy holding it back.--THIS BREAKS DOWN MONOPOLY. THE CORE INFRASTRUCTURE IS THE HOLD BACK AS THAT IS STILL OWNED BY A FEW COMPANIES.

Comments

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Andy

I suspect we can go further than that proposed by Andy Kessler.

Each mobile phone contract is essentially a bundle of handset purchase, handset finance, network access, call termination fees, directory services and value added services (such as voicemail). All of these ought to be available separately.

In my ideal (highly competitive) world, we would own our own phone numbers and be able to point them to any directory and value-added service provider for delivery over any network (to mobile or wired device).

If each new 4G handset had two logins (one for each network type and one for each SIP service) this could happen.

1) We could buy a phone and finance it with a credit card or savings.
2) Buy network access in access bundles (3G, 4G, wifi, depending on our needs and costs). Moving to another courtry briefly? Buy access there and add the network name and password to the phone.
3) Buy a SIP service to receive our calls and provide some value-added services (voicemail, voicemail transcription, address book sync, call blocking, etc).

It might make sense for the direct service (DNS-like, number to handset) to be bundled with the SIP and value add services, to simplify things for the mass market and keep some form of portability system.

With this method (much like the DNS system for the internet, except for the ultimate manager of the each TLD), there is competation for each part of the service.

Alas, this would require action by the regulators the regulators to first enable then force the unbundling.

Best wishes

Darryn Mitussis