Curated by: Luigi Canali De Rossi
 


Sunday, May 30, 2004

How To Put Out Of Business Your Local Telephone Company

The cat is out of the bag. More great news on how VoIP, wireless, and open source software like Linux can create an effective cost-effective replacement to traditional telco services. Disruptive technology at its best. "A disruptive technology is any new gizmo that puts an end to the good life for technologies that preceded it. New technologies running on cheap Linux boxes are all you need to become your cul de sac's wireless ISP. Going further, if a bunch of your friends in town had similarly configured software and hardware tools, they could seamlessly work together and put out of business your local telephone company. There is an obvious business opportunity here, especially for VoIP providers like Vonage, Packet8 and their growing number of competitors. If I was running a VoIP company ,I'd find a way to sell my service through all these new Wireless ISPs. The typical neighborhood WISP doesn't really want to DO anything beyond keeping the router plugged-in and the bills paid, so I as a VoIP vendor would offer a bundled phone-Internet service for, say, $30 per month. I handle the phone part, do all the billing and split the gross sales with the WISP based the traffic on his router or routers. If one of my users walks around with a WiFi cordless phone, roaming from router to router, it doesn't matter since my IP-based accounting system will simply adjust the payments as needed. The result is a system with economics with which a traditional local phone company simply can't compete. If this doesn't set you off thinking and making some real business and corporate business considerations, wat will?

 

 

I, Cringely -
Reference: PBS [ Read more ]
 
 
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posted by Robin Good on Sunday, May 30 2004, updated on Tuesday, May 5 2015

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