Oklahoma and Eurocentric: The Demise of the Landline

In my many weeks of writing this blog, I have received only one comment. That comment was they never expected to see Oklahoma and Eurocentric in the same sentence. Well you are going to see it again. That particular blog identified Oklahoma as having most number of homes replacing landline communications with a cell phone. Therefore, of all the fifty states, it was the closet to Europe's adoption rate of the cell phone as the only form of voice communication. This is very relevant to the IP community.

Recently, I spent a week discussing the FUD associated with voice quality and VoIP/SIP Trunking. As the adoption rate of cell only communications for personal use continues, the voice quality issues will rapidly diminish in priority. The principal reason is that when users accept cell phone quality as the standard, then the far superior quality of VoIP will a positive. Take a moment now to see what we accept with cell phones...dropped calls, poor voice quality, insufficient volume levels, no coverage, etc... If indeed this becomes the norm, no one will complain about a VoIP/SIP Trunking call again. And we are on our way.

Landline connections peaked in the US in 2000. The number of landlines today is down 20% from 2000. This is despite of an increase in population of an estimated 8% over the same time-period. Many of us saw this day coming when the only use for a payphone booth was to have some privacy while engaged in a cell phone conversation. Hotels have seen this over the past few years as well. Think about the last time you checked into a hotel room and called the office or home to advise them of the number. I remember four or five years ago when I first used the AT&T's international roaming service. I was in Hong Kong traveling from the airport to downtown in a taxi when I received a normal business call. As I hung up, I realized the power then of truly global communications. My first Skype call was from Argentina back to my wife. The voice quality was good but it is even better today.

Everyday Broadvox receives customer enquiries asking to test our facilities. I have instructed our sales staff to let them know they are testing our network every time they call us. So...how is the sound? Can you hear me clearly? By the way, we do not allow customers to test our service. We have been handling VoIP traffic since 2001 and we know it works, thank you very much.