Blogger Clay Shirky simplifies the rationale for a transition to a VoIP based phone universe.
His observation about the lengths of which the RBOC’s will go is right on.
To clarify, it was not in the telcos best interest today to be in the VoIP business. They have too many employees who will be displaced, thus causing issues with the CWA (Communications Workers of America), which is why the union favors state regulation; the RBOC’s need to amortize all of those big Lucent and Nortel switches over years, not months–do think any executive wants to say they made a mistake and didn’t go IP softswitch?
But mostly, and just like the music business which has fought downloading for years, the old timers just didn’t get VoIP, nor did they think broadband would catch fire the way it has.
Unlike music, which has copyright to protect and slow down growth, the only protection the telcos had was their own Central Offices. They did a pretty good job of slowing down DSL for years, before they could take control of it, limiting installations, providing lousy access, etc. But while they were playing defense, the cable operators went on the offense. For VoIP the cable companies were the panacea, a broadband connected customer and no phone service other than the Bell operating company (of course a cell phone).
From a marketing perspective, their customers were the perfect audience, which is why Vonage was able to jump start their customer acquisition efforts.
The carriers did themselves in. They could have owned broadband. They could have been delivering VoIP.
Do you remember the dinosaurs?