BearItAll <spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>
>> Microsoft plans range of phones
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | Microsoft is preparing to launch a range of audio and video phones
>> | in an attempt to carve itself a slice of the global business
>> | telecoms market.
>> |
>> | [...]
>> |
>> | According to Microsoft vice-president Gurdeep Singh Pall, the company is
>> | having to manufacture the device itself, because the technology is so
>> | "disruptive" to the communications industry that Microsoft could find no
>> | major electronics company willing to produce it.
>> `----
>>
>>
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/03/25/cnmsoft25.xml
>>
>> Monopolies that know no limits. ISP, electricity, hardware, gaming
>> consoles, media players, peripherals, _oh!_... and some software as well.
>
> Video phones didn't really take off in the UK. Amstrad used to do one, I had
> one of those Amstrad phones, but I never did a video call on it because of
> cause I was the only person I knew that had one (and I already know what I
> look like). I let the kids play games on it once, but I stopped that when I
> saw the first bill.
There have been many video phones over the years, the Amstrad one was
one of the later ones. There are some new ones now from BT which will
video call over broadband lines. I remain to be convinced that people
really want this particular technology.
>
> But now it can be done online I wonder if they will be any long term market
> for anything of this sort. Unless their intention is to link to the online
> phones. Then you are stuck again with the only down side of those things,
> in my view, that the different VoIP's don't want to share their customers.
>
As you use Skype, they are completely proprietary, and rather expensive
for off-net calls, too. If you were to use something like Asterisk for
your VoIP on-net calls, then at least you would be able to connect to
anyone.
Few people consider the ubiquity of the existing PSTN, the E.164
numbering system which can uniquely address every single phone on the
planet, unambiguously, without any need for nat and pat (okay, PBXs sit
behind the PSTN, but that's by choice). As the E.164 system begins to
break down, then the concept of being able to ring anyone from anywhere
will disappear, and we are likely to get a phone system which a) doesn't
stream audio so well, and b) can only dial limited numbers of people.
The only route out of that is to break the stranglehold which the likes
of Skype are trying to get, by using an open provider. Unforunately,
the proprietary/non-free guys like Skype have been very successful, and
are presently winning the day.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
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