The End of the Telephone?

The telephone as we know it has been evolving slowly since its invention in the late 1800s, but many of the basic concepts haven't changed much. The standard 'home telephone' is still an analog device that works over a copper wire circuit. There are, however, some game changing developments that may be signaling the end of the traditional public switched telephone network.

The first of these is mobile telephony. Introduced to the masses in the 1980s, the first cellular phone networks bore many similarities to the analog fixed network but have since evolved into a totally digital medium. Mobile phones introduced the concept that one calls a person and not a place; no matter where I travel, you can call me at a single number. Where traditional phone networks were organized around a strict hierarchy of fixed locations, mobile networks are more dynamic; the endpoints (mobile terminals) can rearrange themselves in real time and the network routing infrastructure must compensate by sending signals over different frequencies, radio antennas, and even to other peered networks.

Soon after cellular telephony was introduced, the Internet began its ascendancy into popular consciousness. At first used for simple things like file transfers, electronic mail, and web pages, the Internet has grown into a reliable real-time data transfer platform for almost any kind of information. With increasing bandwidth and decreasing latency, the Internet can now support real time audio and even video transport. This enables applications like Skype, iChat, and other communication applications to emulate and even interface with fixed and mobile telephone networks. Due to the openness and flexibility of the Internet, these applications can provide additional functionality that telephones cannot, such as real-time presence notifications and the ability to transfer messages, sounds, images, and data files. This opens up many new possibilities for human interaction.

Now we are witnessing the fusion of mobility and the Internet. 3G radio networks can transport data at over a megabit per second to and from mobile handsets, and those handsets have enough memory and processing power to render all kinds of media in real time. Many people, especially younger people, are using mobile phones exclusively, ditching the idea that they need to have a land line in their home.

I wonder how long it will be until the PSTN as we know it is relegated to an anachronism, supported as a backward-compatibility feature for old phones and other equipment like fax machines?

Here are my thoughts about what the future might look like:

• The network will become less visible to people. Right now people have to know arcane dialing codes to make phone calls. In the future,  people will have one or more network addresses that look like email addresses. Instead of dialing 407-555-3223 you will contact joe.difonzo@att.net.
• People may have multiple network addresses. This would allow them to separate personal and business communications, for example.
• A single network address will support all types of communication, from instant messages to e-mail to voice and video calls. The person initiating contact will simply select who they want to contact and what type of contact they want. For example, I may choose to contact John Smith at his personal identity and send a video message, or Mary Jones at her business identity and start a live voice communication.
• Integrated presence management (seen today in instant messaging applications) will let people share their current status with friends and colleagues; this will let my wife see, for example, that I'm currently in a meeting and avoid her calling me only to listen to a ring tone for 30 seconds before she can leave a voice message.
  
• Applications like address books and calendars will be server-based, enabling access from multiple devices. This will allow, for example, my secretary to add calendar appointments while I'm on an airplane. The mobile device will stay synchronized with the server any time it's connected to the network.
• Voice will be transported over IP and not the current circuit-switched network. The mobile network as we know it will become more homogeneous by eliminating the circuit-switched network interface.
• Personal applications will become location-aware, and provide new functions that are sensitive to the location of the user. For example, reminding them that they need to pick up dry cleaning (if it's on their to-do list) when they are in the vicinity of the shop.

I don't know how long it will take to see this transition complete, but it seems that the pace of change is accelerating and we may be at the tipping point sooner than we think.

What do you think?