

Google Voice and FaceTime – Why the Carriers Are Losing Their Voice - Garbage
http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/07/google-voice-and-facetime-why-the-carriers-are-losing-their-voice/

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Groxx
Because... carriers are at least as ass-backwards when it comes to tech as the
media industry is?

The first slightly-interested part(y|ies) to come along with a couple decent
ideas and enough scale to actually bring it to enough people to make it useful
have caused _major_ upheaval because phone companies seem to think we've
barely entered the digital age.

Think about it: you have voice mail as a sad, low quality version of your old
answering machine, with no new tricks, and you can't save them anywhere else.
You have text messages, which are incredibly limited and cost _thousands_ of
times the data transfer cost. You have a phone number list on your phone that
probably maxes out at 1000 (or fewer), _might_ search something aside from the
name, and you pay a premium for the ability to back it up yourself with crappy
tools, or for them to transfer it to another phone in their system _once_. I
can have up to 3 alarms on my phone. I'm charged up the wazoo for horrible
pre-made ring tones. No voice recording (memos). No _call_ recording. _No
integration of any kind with my computer_ (except sending / receiving up to 10
v-cards at a time via bluetooth). What was the last device you've had in the
past 5 years that you could say any of that about, much less one which costs
as much as your phone.

All of which is partially solved by "proper" smart phones like Android and
iPhone, which run software (/hardware) made by non-telecom companies. And am I
the only one who thinks that voicemail -> email, ring time rules, and call-
forwarding to your other phones should have existed 5+ years ago if your phone
providers weren't sitting on their asses?

Thank you, Apple and Google, for showing phone companies what they should have
been doing all along: _improving_.

~~~
yardie
I think the phone companies are fully aware of the things they could provide.
They would rather charge you for the privilege. I take special exception with
Verizon who are notorious for nickel and diming for features that would be
free anywhere else. Like bluetooth file syncing.

In one instance I managed to find a backdoor for my ringtones using the
V-(web,cast,mail, I honestly can't remember) website. It was supposed to be
used to upload and download photos. And I was able to upload mp3 ringtones to
my phone. Then one day the system would only sync jpegs. You could upload all
the files you wanted but they would never be sent to the phone.

When I moved abroad I bought a cheap sony-ericcson that could do 10x more than
that POS Samsung from Verizon and it was half the price.

It didn't surprise me the iPhone never made it to verizon. I'm pretty sure the
breakdown was over the fact that Apple wanted to include a bunch of stuff that
Verizon would rather you pay them for.

~~~
Groxx
Definitely agree. And now it's come back to bite them.

Serves them right. Capitalism FTW.

------
stcredzero
Word to the wise: When a software company with actual ability and some edge
decides to move into your industry, if they are doing things right, _your
industry will be disrupted._

Music, books, movie rentals, mobile phones: these are just the most familiar
consumer-facing examples. Anyone else have other examples?

~~~
yafujifide
This gives me an interesting idea: How about a Netflix for clothes? I bet a
lot of people would love to have new clothes every week.

The only problem would be ensuring the clothes are clean and in good
condition. You would probably have to have some automated way of cleaning the
clothes if the system is to be efficient. Checking that the clothes are not
torn up would be harder, but you can have the customers do that for you.
They'll just send it back if there is a problem.

~~~
aaroneous
renttherunway.com does it for designer dresses and thredup.com for kids
clothing

~~~
metageek
The model probably works better for designer dresses, since renting a $2000
dress for $200 seems like a bargain, but leaves the owner with enough profit
to pay for professional cleaning.

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Xuzz
Note: while this mentions that FaceTime is an 'open standard', it's not, at
least yet.

Steve Jobs promised it in June, but he has yet to release any documentation or
the necessary information to make a compatible implementation.

~~~
davidedicillo
my bet is that is going to release it after Christmas. Right now he has the
perfect environment where people like me (who lives in the US) buy as xmas
present for his mother (who lives in Italy) an iPod touch so that we can video
chat without having to explain how to make Skype work or install a webcam.

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aroon
That was easily the most misinformed article I have ever read on tc. I'm not
even sure where to begin. About the only thing that is right is that services
will be moving to the application layer in the long run because there are
benefits the abstracting the network. But the idea that the people providing
the data link upon which every service you care about depends on are becoming
irrelevant is so absurd it makes me laugh. Where would apple and google be and
where are they going without them?

~~~
pjscott
They're "irrelevant" if people can easily switch to a similarly-priced
competitor and have everything keep on working as it did before. Once the
network is abstracted, the companies providing that network become
interchangeable, and therefore about as relevant as the company that picks up
your garbage each week.

That's the grand hope, anyway.

~~~
izendejas
The key word there is _if_ (in the first sentence). I doubt it.

Telcos/ISPs are headed the way of utility companies. They are natural
oligopolies because the barrier to entry is too huge for there to be many
competitors and it's in everyone's interest to have them functioning well and
at least partially profitable, so don't be surprised if they get subsidized or
even nationalized.

The companies that pick up one's garbage happen to be cities in most cases. So
as stated above, here you might even be right--if by irrelevant you mean, that
we take them for granted yet are still extremely important (eg, without
electricity we would have little, without garbage services we would die
sooner, etc...)

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trezor
Considering I know _noone_ who uses Google Voice, nobody who uses FaceTime and
a million people and two who uses Skype, this article seems kinda silly.

I guess the lesson which people should learn (especially the people in the
US), is that there is severe differences between different markets and
regions, and whatever happens in the US _might_ be something interesting or it
may be the US entering the space the rest of Europe and Asia entered 5 years
ago or more.

I still don't get why FaceTime is any better than the other options out there,
especially when it only works on Macs and Apple-devices.

~~~
yardie
I remember, early on, when no one was using Skype except for those that knew
about it.

The main difference between Skype and Facetime is one is based on proprietary
software and the other is a bundle of open standards. Just because Skype
dominates doesn't mean it will always stay that way.

~~~
mike-cardwell
I don't think that's the main difference. I think the main difference is that
one works on just about every Desktop and smartphone OS, while the other only
works on a single minor desktop OS and a single minor phone OS (albeit fast
growing).

And I'm not an Apple hater. I love my Macbook.

