The Next Voice Communication Evolution

In a world where a sentiment can be communicated in 140 characters or with the speed of a text or an emoji does voice, speaking to another person on the phone, matter?

There are plenty of articles suggesting time spent talking on the phone is time squandered, some of them even provide reasons to avoid talking on the phone like the “courtesies,” defined as working through a pile of time-wasters just to ask a simple question. On the flip side are those who see voice communication as precious and special because it means you have made the choice to devote time to an actual conversation.

A new report from Dark Reading, a leading analyst firm, says, “Yes,” voice communications matter and remain a fundamental need. Arguing the issue is not the necessity of the service but how it is delivered.

Mr. Watson Come Here I Want to See You

No doubt, at one time or another, we’ve all seen that grainy archival footage of Alexander Graham Bell making the first telephone call to his assistant Thomas Watson in 1876. The people standing around him looking on in awe as he said, “Mr. Watson come here, I want to see you.” Since then we’ve been working on ways to improve the delivery platform, putting in place one protocol after another so we can communicate with each other from anywhere in the world as if we are standing together in the same room.

I think the evolution of voice can be broken down into seven periods of innovation, in the modern era. First, we have that fateful call in 1876, no need to discuss that further. Next, we have Time Division Multiplexed (TDM).

In general, TDM gave us voice trunking into a customer-owned phone system, which at the time was revolutionary. With TDM, customers have lines provided by a carrier which run into an onsite PBX system. The customer is in the phone business, they own and manage their equipment and can make decisions about the number of lines coming in and going out, which was great until customers started to buckle under the total cost of ownership. It’s one thing to stand up your headquarters building in Milwaukee with a hundred lines, but what about all of your satellite offices and the maintenance of those lines? Oye! Companies were quick to realize, when it came to voice, ownership wasn’t good for business, which brought forth the next innovation, Hosted Voice Service.

Hosted Voice Services provided all the benefits of a TDM with none of the headaches. A company could have a TDM-based service hosted within a carrier service, which meant they no longer had to operate their premise-based phone system or additional on-premise equipment. With Hosted Voice Services all a company had to do was purchase individual handsets and pay their bill each month. All was right with the world until…The dotcom revolution.

Say Hello

Sure, the Mac said, “Hello,” in 1984 and historians mark the dotcom revolution as the period 1996 to 1996, but the sentiment is consistent with our expectation technology can do more. Enter Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). VoIP, purpose built software technology designed to support the transmission of voice communications over the Internet, changed the game.

VoIP provided a cost effective alternative to traditional telephony using speech data compression techniques to forward the telephone signals as digital audio over the Internet and reconvert them back into voice at their destination. What!? Yep, here’s another wrinkle, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking.

If it wasn’t enough that you can have your voice digitized into data packets that are forwarded over the Web and then converted back into voice once it’s reached its destination, now we’ve got SIP. With SIP, virtual voice trunks are provided by a carrier and traverse a customer’s data network into their premise-based phone system. Customers can use their existing network to allow voice and data to run over a converged network. The benefit, no separate lines to be maintained. The downfall, customers, are back in the phone business and have to manage premise-based equipment and the capacity of the trunk. Which brings us to our next innovation Hosted VoIP.

Just as with hosted voice of yesteryear, Hosted VoIP frees the customer from the shackles of ownership eliminating the need to operate a premise-based phone system. The customer purchases individual desk sets, PC/MAC-based soft phone and can leverage their existing data network connections, allowing voice and data to run over a converged network providing the benefit of no separate lines to be maintained. While these innovations are remarkable and have done a great deal to advance global voice communications, the demands for better and more convenient communication services are unrelenting.

You’ve come a Long Way Baby Now, Catch the Next Wave

In 140-year voice communications have advanced from Alexander Graham Bell calling his assistant to customer owned phone systems and calls made over the Internet.

Today we have Unified Communications (UC), a solution that combines VoIP with enhanced collaboration features and functionality like email, instant messaging and video or web conferencing. UC can integrate assigned desk sets or PC/MAC-based soft phones with a mobile device for end-user presence and single number reach capabilities. Yep, we have UC to thank for being able to have our desk phone ring through to our cell phones, always on baby.

So, what’s the next big wave? If you listen to the chatter, it’s the Cloud Voice Platform. You didn’t think we’d get through a discussion of voice communications without mentioning “The Cloud,” did you? For some, The Cloud is nebulous, pardon the pun, this obscure, unclear, vague “thing” where everything lives, but no one seems to know how to get to, which is part of the challenge when talking about the Cloud Voice Platform, what is it?

Turns out, the Cloud Voice Platform is a Web scale able, virtualized software solution hosted in external data centers designed for service providers to deliver VoIP and UC services. The Cloud Voice Platform provides a complete and pre-integrated package of VoIP functional elements enabling a cost-effective, adaptable and progressive hosted voice solution. Pretty cool.

Analysts like Jim Hodges, Heavy Reading, believe the Cloud Voice Platform represents an opportunity for communications service providers to deliver a cost-effective communication solution with the ability to bridge existing technologies and adapt to innovations while minimizing the customers total cost of ownership.

The Reports of My Death are Greatly Exaggerated

To quote Heavy Readings Jim Haley, “…the fundamental need for voice communications remains constant…” What I hope this brief trip through the annals of voice communication evolution and innovation has shown is communications service providers are vigilant about being responsive to the needs of customers and mindful about how advances in technology and service delivery models like the Cloud Voice Platform can deliver a crisp, clear, seamless experience to end users.