Frank,
your post made many of the points that I, in my more muddled way, was trying to get at. A couple of observations:
You divided voice usage over cable into two categories: (1) standard POTS plant and (2) all the rest. I believe that there is subvariant of (2) that is also medium-term accessible, because it also relies mostly on 'legacy' plant - namely the PC (plus, possibly a connected handset).
To set the scene: the IP network is always on, and so, potentially is the PC. In this case, one could imagine something looking very much like a phone handset being connected directly to the PC. There are several ways this could be used:
1) Outgoing call initiated from PC-phone
2) Outgoing 'call' initiated from PC
3) Incoming regular call, ie call to existing phone number
4) Incoming 'web-call', ie a call to a web-phone IP address (not the usual phone number)
I'll explore some characteristics and examples of each:
1) Outgoing PC-phone call
This can be used in much the same way as the regular phone handset, to dial any phone number. However, because calls would be placed through an internet telephony server, certain numbers (say telephone yellow pages), might initiate a web/call, ie a simultaneous web and voice connection. Here, the web session (on-screen) would probably be controlled by the called service (ie an agent, or voice / DTMF responses from the caller). For example, you might pick up the handset, press the 'Yellow Pages' button, and say 'Shoe repairers near to here'. (This might be to an agent, or could be an automated service). The service would have the address passed through, and would automatically find, and show a list and map of the 10 nearest businesses on screen, and start reading a voice description.
2) Outgoing call from PC. This is fairly similar to the scenario above, with two variants. One is that a local application (say an address book) would have buttons to initiate a call - you might hear the ringing tone over speakers, and then pick up the handset when it's answered. The other variant would be a call initiated from a button on a web page. In this case, the button could simply be saying 'dial this number' or, more interestingly, initiating a call to some combined web/phone CTI application. (There's potentially some ambiguity around who exactly is initiating the call, and indeed, paying for it). An application here might be while browsing around an e-commerce site (perhaps for some high-value product or service), this button would let you get help or advice from a customer service agent, who might also help you navigate around the site.
3) Incoming regular call. Mostly this is less interesting. The LEC, or the device that drives the old telephones and their wires, sends a 'ring' signal to the PC-phone too. However, if this were a call from someone who was also using a PC-phone (and ITSP), some kind of other connection could be started in mid-call (a video connection, whiteboard, sharing data, whatever). Even for calls from a regular telephone, the PC could use caller id to show (and perhaps announce) who was calling.
4) Incoming web call. Here, the call is placed to, essentially, an IP address not a phone number. The ring tone might be different, or only the PC phone might ring. On answering, the connection could be just voice, or a video call, or include some other kind of display on the screen. You might want to have some control of the session that you'd be accepting - the service might announce what kind of call this was, from whom, and let you decide.
Clearly some of the applications I describe are not first stage, especially those that depend on many people or companies having new equipment.
It does seem to me though that a relatively simple handset device connected to a PC (and perhaps a few compelling services on the back end) could be easy to deploy, once an installed base of PCs connected to always-on medium/broadband networks exists.
Incidentally, Microsoft recently launched a 'Microsoft phone' that does some of the things that relate just to phone, answering machine and address book functionality.
I'd be interested in any thoughts people have about how the phone connects to the PC. Could it work when the PC is off? Is the phone connected to the PC, which is connected to the network, or could it be the other way round?
- Roger |
