Aug 30, 2005
What is the telecom industry doing? One line: constantly developing techonolgy that's obsolete before its complete.
I often wonder if I'm the only one with my thinking cap on, or if I'm just crazy. It's probably a little bit of both. Me and my small circle of friends seem to think some things are obvious - what's going on with the rest of the world though (for the purposes of this entry - the biz community)?
This entry is on the issue of cell phones.
I just heard a story on NPR (I refuse to listen to radio that's not online, unless I'm in a car, and didn't have time to download a program or five to my Treo 650) about the idea of bringing "cell phone service" to the subway system here in NYC.
Today there was an article in the NYTimes about an iPod cell phone, and part of the article wrote:
It was not clear whether the iTunes phone would allow users to download songs directly from the Internet onto the phone, though music industry analysts said they doubted that such a capability would be immediately available. Mike McGuire, an online-music analyst with Gartner Inc., a research firm, said that so-called over-the-air downloads would first require ironing out technological and music-licensing issues.
But the day of wireless downloads of full songs is not far off, according to major wireless carriers. Sprint said on Monday that by the end of the year it planned to offer phones that allowed users to download full songs wirelessly. Mr. Nelson of Verizon Wireless said his company was also in the final stages of developing such a capability.
What I'm trying to figure out is why we're wasting time, money, resources, and the customers' time by developing technology that's obsolete before it's complete?Today, I can make and receive phone calls using Skype, MSN, Yahoo, AIM, GoogleTalk, IRC and a few other chat programs - all for free - with anyone around the world. Skype even offers a version of their software that works on handheld computers with WiFi cards. As a result, I could be sitting in Bryant Park, NYC, which has free WiFi provided by Google and call anyone in the world. For those with Skype accounts, the call is 100% free. For those with out Skype, I simply pay a small connection fee which the old phone company they're connected to requires to complete the call. This is all available TODAY.
Why aren't we talking about free WiFi (actually, WiMax) being available everywhere on earth? Then there's no reason to waste the time of smart researchers on projects that once deployed won't last very long... there are much more important things these companies should be investing time and money on.
I know one guy who's working on this - and if you live in NYC, you'd better vote for him:
http://www.advocatesforrasiej.com/
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