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The landline phone continues to lose luster with me. I much prefer my cellphone.
The voice quality of my cellphone can't compare to my landline, but in every other respect the cellphone wins.
My contact database is totally integrated on my cellphone. My landline phone doesn't even know what a contact database is.
I get emails on my cellphone, and phone numbers are hyperlinked so I can click and call them. Try that on a land line.
You get the picture. The cellphone rocks. The landline does not.
This weekend I wanted to send The Gotham Gal a text message. I couldn't make a phone call without being rude. But a quick text message would have been fine. Only she was home, on a landline. And I knew she wasn't on email. I wanted to text message the landline and have the phone beep alerting her to an incoming message.
The cellphone has conditioned me to behaviors that aren't possible on landlines. And so I don't want the landline anymore. I'll take the reduced quality. What I really want is increased funcationality.
Comments (14) | Posted May 30, 2006 in Venture Capital and Technology
Comments
Back when I was a techie/tech architect and even a vendor to a BigTelCo, I proposed so many things like this and they were all ignored in favor of pouring money into "applications" that enabled "bundling" of services.
There are only so many ways one can re-shuffle the deck chairs on the Titanic, as they say. Rebundling your "services", when they are all the same services but just in different packages, is not terribly compelling for the customer -- especially when they all depend upon paying $24.95/month for the dialtone.
Personally, I believe telco missed the opportunities by chasing profits and behaving as monopolists. One can't really fault them for chasing profits, but it came at the expense of developing services that the customers really wanted. Unlike Apple, which can dream up products and services that everybody wants, Telcos delivered "Internet Call Waiting" (nobody bought it), "Push To Talk 802.11b Mobile Phones" (nobody bought them), The Mailbug (nobody used it), and on and on.
Telco has the ability to provide service when every other provider is dead in the water. The last time your dialtone stopped was when? That's right. They could have built from this rock solid foundation, but instead chose to wall it off and protect it. They're still trying to protect "their" networks, but, in the end, the innovation and valuable services came "from the edges", as they say.
Posted by: scooooot | May 30, 2006 8:28:21 AM
This is presently possible in many countries like the United kingdom, and large parts of Asia. It has been around for quite sometime now as this article points out. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/05/bt_land_text/
But I am not surprised that this is not offered in the United States as texting is not very popular in America compared to Asia where its a craze.
Btw, your blog is a great read. Keep it up!
Posted by: Vignesh Ravi | May 30, 2006 8:56:42 AM
Don't blame the engineers, it's the marketing weenies.
http://www.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php
We could actually add this feature to Fat Calico with a long evening of work.
Posted by: Erik Schwartz | May 30, 2006 9:22:06 AM
This is actually possible right now if Sprint is your wireless carrier. Coincidentally I just wrote about this on my blog a few days ago. Feature was launched a month or so ago. Free and very cool.
http://danentin.typepad.com/two_percent_nation/2006/05/sprints_really_.html
Posted by: Dan Entin | May 30, 2006 9:46:12 AM
I've been landline-less for a number of years now and have loved being free.
More than happy with the trade off between functions and quality, I'll never go back to a landline.
In fact, when visiting a friend the other day who only has a landline I wondered how I would function in that situation - my life has adapted to a cellphone so much that I can't imagine functioning with only a landline.
Posted by: Fraser | May 30, 2006 10:10:41 AM
Fred,
In the UK we have two things:
text to landlines - mostly the text will be read out to whoever answers the landline
use your mobile over your landline - we're just starting to get the option to continue to use your mobile at home, but it runs via the landline at landline rates
How about that for the cokey old uk? You could always move out here.
Posted by: ivan | May 30, 2006 10:16:22 AM
I'll say you've never been in a situation where you had to go days without power and make a lot of phone calls.
Following Hurricane Andrew, the only thing that worked reliably for about 3-4 days was my landline. I've only lost dialtone for about 3, maybe 5 days in the last 20 *years*.
I'll think about going all cell for "normal" calls when i get a true unlimited minutes plan, but i'll always have some kind of landline and a nine-dollar radio shack special.
Posted by: John C. Welch | May 30, 2006 10:58:29 AM
In Europe now you can do most things also on a landline, provided you have a special phone and/or you can stand convoluted IVR systems :)
I worked on a few projects like that in Italy, where you can send/receive SMS, get ringtones, chat and do a lot of things with your landline. In fact, some fixed line companies offer the possibility to order (via IVR) mobile content and download it on your mobile phone, in a bid to subtract some VAS revenue from the mobile operators. They also give much better revenue share to partners...
Posted by: Giordano | May 30, 2006 11:11:25 AM
I agree with the advantages of cellphones. But don't forget a major problem with cellphones: availability, or lack of it. How many calls do you get dropped, or how many times do you dial and get a "NETWORK BUSY" message with a fast-busy signal? For myself and others I've asked, it happens all the time, way too much to be an anomaly. My best guess is either (1) the cellular network is inherently unreliable (I don't think I buy this), or (2) the cellular companies oversell their capacity, to the detriment of their own customers.
Posted by: chris | May 30, 2006 1:26:03 PM
Both the PSTN and the cellular networks are contention based.
However, for obvious reasons, modeling usage as far as how many erlangs are needed is a tremendously more difficult problem on the cellular networks than on the PSTN.
Posted by: Erik Schwartz | May 30, 2006 2:01:27 PM
Thanks to all the commenters. I can see that things really haven't changed since I left the U.S. and that I'm lucky were I'm living currently (DK).
Mobil (cell) and Land costs are about equal (land lines are mostly a monopoly) and the quality of service for mobil is outstanding (dropped signal, Network Busy? what's that?)
You can also keep your number no matter which company you switch to, so that you really only have to have one telephone number for the rest of your life!
Posted by: AWilhem | May 31, 2006 6:38:36 AM
I agree, Fred, but I keep my landline for two reasons. First, toll free conference calls from my home office... don't have to pay for the minutes and the sound quality is much better. Second, redundency. After 9/11 and the blackout, the cellphones died first. I want another way to call if my cell phone network is overwhelmed in an emergecy. I don't think VoIP is as reliable for a backup, is it?
Posted by: Brouhaha | May 31, 2006 10:26:37 AM
One of the biggest issues, frankly, is that *many* people, even those with landlines, don't have that one phone that doesn't operate without batteries. We've gotten so used to cordless phones and other high-powered devices that having one around is old school, unless you remember to keep one of those around.
As for the fixed-line SMS, that's something that I saw a lot of discussion around during the few years I was working in telco, but most of the North Americans weren't into it. South America was all about it, and Europe was obviously familiar, but the telcos in this country were kind of shrugging their shoulders at it, kind of like how they probably did with SMS on mobiles in the first place.
Posted by: Tom | Jun 2, 2006 11:20:40 AM
Does anyone know of any suppliers of fixed-line SMS Modems?
Posted by: Peter | Jul 10, 2006 5:58:38 AM
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