Executive Thought Leadership

Shaking Up the Voice World

In telecommunications, the service-delivery platform has shifted from traditional telephony systems to broadband data networks that use Internet protocols. This disruptive change has profound implications for the industry.

Many users of next-generation communications technology already enjoy the benefits of real-time applications that were once impossible or impractical to deploy. For example, a business can now build a virtual call center that provides personalized, local service to customers in many geographic locations while reducing the number of customer-service agents required.

Meanwhile, the door has swung wide to invite innovation from a new supply chain, thanks to pervasive and extensible technology standards that handle real-time communications. These standards unite the telephone, the PC, voice, data, video, and wired and wireless networks into a single converged service-delivery platform that transcends physical network boundaries.

By relieving developers and integrators from having to repeatedly solve the same technical problems, the new network-based communications platform frees them to focus their energies on creating value-added offerings. Coupled with the speed of broadband networks, the open development environment provides opportunities to new players that previously couldn't find a seat at the telecommunications table, because phone systems used vendor-specific technology that was closed to them.

Then and Now

Voice communications traditionally revolved around proprietary hardware devices dedicated to performing a single task. These systems left little room for customization by technology users or third parties. The hardware-centric voice platform also meant that redundant phone switches, automatic call distribution systems, interactive voice-response systems, and other equipment had to be deployed at each physical business site.

By contrast, the new generation of communications is delivered primarily as software that integrates voice, data, text, and Web collaboration. Applications are deployed in a Web services model in which centralized services eliminate the need for specialized equipment at every business location.

As a result, a broader variety of technology suppliers, as well as corporate IT departments, can develop and market interoperable telecommunications components and applications. This is a situation that fuels creativity and competition, bringing consumers a richer portfolio of product options. It also enables new routes to market through systems integrators, data channels, and voice channels that have evolved to deliver multimedia service applications.

Platform versus Technology Transitions

Until now, the last significant change in the telecommunications industry was when phones moved from analog to digital systems. The newer systems took advantage of greater network capacity on digital phone circuits and offered incremental improvements in functionality, such as support for multiple call appearances. That transition was an evolutionary technology change, not a wholesale platform shift. The reason is that it involved in-place upgrades from traditional suppliers to the same set of customers, and it provided many of the same functions, albeit in a different way.

Platform transitions, in contrast, shift to a whole new service foundation upon which innovators can create entirely new capabilities. To be sure, the new broadband network platform still supports standard voice-calling capabilities. But merging them with text, collaborative video, location-based services, contact lists, customer data, and other functions yields a wealth of new possibilities that raise productivity and offer competitive advantages.

Consider the photography industry. For more than 100 years, the manufacturers of filmhotography's underlying latformdominated the industry. Technological advances, such as new formats, added incremental value to the film platform until there was a disruptive platform change to digital photography. Suddenly, sales shifted from film to memory, printer supplies, and software that were delivered by a new supply chain, changing the face of the photography industry forever.

What's Ahead?

Users are quickly gaining the ability to integrate the use of different types of phonesraditional and wireless handsets, PC-based software phones, video phonesnto the broadband network from practically anywhere. New telephony standards will enable call-processing features to interoperate across both private and public networks and allow calls to pass between private wireless local networks and cellular networks without interruption.

Extending capabilities for converged applications across these environments, including home networks, marks a fundamental shift in the way communication services will be delivered. As a result, we are entering of a whole new era of innovation in the telecommunications market.