Mobile voice is alive and well despite the rumours
A colleague told me a few months ago that “the market isn’t you Pat its the ordinary mobile user” at the time this seemed like a huge slap in the face but over the past period I have spent quite a bit of time speaking with “Normob’s” about their requirements.
I smiled a little yesterday when I saw Clive Thomson mixing up himself and Normobs in Wired.
This generation doesn’t make phone calls, because everyone is in constant, lightweight contact in so many other ways: texting, chatting, and social-network messaging. And we don’t just have more options than we used to. We have better ones: These new forms of communication have exposed the fact that the voice call is badly designed. It deserves to die.
Well Clive the bad news is the generation you are speaking about are geeks, not the ordinary Joe on the street, the ordinary Joe is incredibly happy with Voice/SMS although I agree not with voice-mail. I would be one of Clive’s perfect candidates with 3 times as much data usage as voice and a complete dislike of voice but again I am not a normob.
So to give Clive a little overview of those real world mobile users. I will borrow some stats from my friend and mobile rockstar Tommi Ahonen’s blog.
4.6 billion subscriptions.
$1.1 trillion in revenues
1.1 billion handsets every year
“Voice is a viable communication method in the Developing World for about 85% of the mobile phone user base. That is 2.5 billion people – twice the total population in the Industrialized World”
I love the idea of status (Presence), why would I waste time calling you if I knew you were busy but its been tried and no company has got it right, we were using it three years ago but its promise hasn’t delivered.
So Clive maybe the next time you have to dial a number please remember you and about 3 billion people will do the same over the next 24hrs, oh and you are not a normob.
So what are you Geek or “Normob”?
I have unlimited minutes on my mobile plan because I NEED them. Not a huge fan of talking on the phone unless it’s to good friends, but the reality is I have conference calls for work and side projects, need to be contactable, and cannot – try as I might – get away from voice.
I’m a geek compared to the average user but that doesn’t mean I can retreat to a bat cave of voice-free communications, unfortunately.
I’ve taken as many VoIP Voice Skype calls on my hand set as I do Cellular (GSM) Voice calls, but added that with SMS/Skype IM and now also SIP, Voice is still King.
Just as an aside, Clive writes in English, the rest of the world doesn’t read English.
I think you’re overlooked video conferencing as a future for of communication. Wit large companies like Cisco investing in telepresence, and recent acquisition of Tandberg, they see this as the future. Apple new front facing camera on the iPhone 4……..need we say anymore
Having worked closely with Cisco on projects, we can clearly see the transition from voice to video and converged networks of voice, data and video conferencing!
I’ve recently started using Web-ex, and I have to say, for meetings schedules and sharing of information and webcam communication, this medium for future communications seriously has to be looked at.
Nexus
would love to see some stats from bluface regarding usage of fring etc on mobile devices? Although still using a mobile device, may not necessarily mean a mobile operator is carrying the call! It is still a voice call….
Just got this in via Silicon Republic…..
how secure is mobile voice traffic?
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/17212-mobile-networks-can-be-hack
On a global scale, voice sure isn’t dying. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a worldwide demand for value-added services like ring back tones for the voice domain or there wouldn’t be a debate on how to integrate voice with LTE.
Secondly, there is a huge market potential for voice services in emerging economies where you don’t have mobile broadband or fancy high-end devices. These people heavily rely on voice services and they are essential for their living quality.
I think I began using mobiles (circa 2005) just as texting was really taking off — in my area anyway. I still call, but it’s for the long or urgent stuff. Or customer care. *shudder*