Evan,
>TIC, but....<
"but... ", indeed.
This represents a form of off-hand topic similar to that which I've come across with increasing frequency when dealing with certain marketing and carrier startup folks. It usually falls under the heading of "only-the-paranoid-survive" during diligence sessions. It's the kind of subject that almost demands that we take a hypothetical stance for discussion purposes.
A little over a year ago Siemens Nixdorff and Pyramid Technologies were awarded a contract as integrators to do a similar form of pinpoint bombing in my beloved Apple. They were instrumental in deploying (providing?) FreeBeeTV services, a form of advertiser-paid 'free' Cable Television, in several high-rise apartment buildings in NY City, using Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) technologies over twisted pairs to individual apartments.
Captive audience advertising to data-based accounts was the intent behind this, too. Don't hear much about them anymore, but they made a big splash at the time and raised speculation by the hair-brains of the day that this would threaten and eventually impact on all of Cable TVdom, while the DSL mavens saw this as a potential killer-app and a boon to DSL sales, as well, for a technology that has since gone on to find other uses, primarily Internet access and SOHO applications.
[[Notwithstanding, I did read today that US West is now going ahead with a VDSL-based Cable TV Offering in Phoenix AZ (I don't know the supplier of hardware there). And Bell Atlantic does have a platform through the use of Next Level gear in Boston, to be followed late this year and early next year in the NYC region.]]
Despite the fact that Cable TV has gone more and more the way of advertising, recently, it wasn't because of FreeBeeTV. And it still costs the same to receive it. Some would argue a lot of money, which does not preclude advertising. Not a good parallel for this discussion, but an interesting one, I think, nonetheless.
The article raises some interesting questions surrounding security, privacy and other proprietary matters, since a two-way mechanism for ordering and fulfilling services and goods is the next logical step.
I've read other business plans and witnessed the creation of some approaches to free LD voice (and other) services that included marketing gimmicks ranging from (fee-bearing) club memberships, to (fare-bearing) airline mileage deals, to (indigestion-inducing) fast food coupons, to you name it.
Although the article does not specify what form of LD the prospective caller will be engaged to in exchange for the minutes that are 'earned,' the odds are that, since it is free, it could very well be a VoIP platform at some time. That would have the effect of giving a mild boost to one segment of the new VoIP market place, while eating away into another. I.e., gateways could receive a short term blip (?) in sales if this catches on, but competing long distance service providers could take a sprinkling on the chin that would get lost in the rounding.
Then again, I'm no longer as surprised as I once was at the magnitude of following some forms of "giveaways" can attract.
But as serious or lighthearted as this discussion may be, this concept touches on a more profound aspect of all seemingly free services, particularly those on the public Internet, and elicits a greater reality: Much of the traffic that would conceivably be generated would probably, in all likelihood, not have taken place in the first place in the absence of such a giveaway. A high percentage of it, in any event, would just, otherwise, not exist. Is this the market revenue you are implying might be threatened? The stream that doesn't otherwise exist? Such as the high-hanging fruit represented by the financially cautious retiree who would like to spend more time cross-country with the grandchildren over the phone?
If BroadPoint/Duquesne did go to a VoIP method, then I would have to also take into account the quality of the call, once i get myself past the requirement to have to dial in a PIN each time I phoned someone (since it is 800-based, it's unlikely that I would presubscribe to it as in 1+VoIP without some serious individual-case-basis armtwisting with my LEC), as well as who was on the other end of the call and what the nature of that call would be, forcing me to go through a series of decision processes as to which voice service would be appropriate each time I placed a call. Whew!
Hypothetically speaking, of course.
Regards, Frank Coluccio |
