I am in
Somewhere around 1996 or 1997 Internet Telephony became a monthly section of CTI and eventually spun off into its own magazine.
When I think back on it much of the promise of CTI is being realized today through VoIP. We wrote about lots of leading edge topics such as web based call control and those technologies are now embodied by today’s VoIP service providers.
The one surprise is that unified messaging isn’t more widely adopted. We wrote about UM probably every issue and the productivity increases from this technology were staggering.
What is amazing is that today many VoIP service providers will give you e-mailed voicemail for as little as $15/month. Couple that with Gmail or Hotmail and you have a dirt cheap unified message offering for the consumer. Why business never picked up on this technology is beyond me.
A funny thing happened yesterday as I was leaving. I switched to Verizon Wireless last year and couldn’t remember if it worked in
I scrambled. I charged my ancient GSM phone and noticed that the battery was still good. I then decided I needed a SIM card. I thought for a moment we were in
I asked if the card was good in
When I got back to the office I grabbed my VOX WiFi phone as well as I thought perhaps that would work in the airport at least.
When I landed, turns out I could roam just fine with my Verizon phone on the Telus network.
I tell you the North American mobile market is so confusing. I can’t imagine how the average person navigates the various standards. Life would be easier if we all just had GSM and better
Toujan
October 27, 2005 at 7:59 pmI hear you loud and clear, Rich!
I landed in Canada a year ago. Before that, I lived in Jordan (Middle East) for the most part of my life.
In Jordan, I was used to mobile carriers (all of them are GSM by the way) competing for price and coverage fiercely, which of course was in my best interest. I watched the price of a minute drop from JD0.50 (about US$0.70) to as little as JD0.05 (about US$0.07) in less than 2 years! You go anywhere, and you have signal. You roam almost to any country in the world with GSM network, and you are connected, even if you are on prepaid. SMS is standard for all plans, and costs peanuts really. MMS is gaining share quickly.
I was also used to receiving as many calls as I wanted, without having to worry about RECEIVING calls! Calls are completely free on the receiving side, which makes much more sense to me 🙂
So I come to North America, and I am shocked to see how primative and expensive are cellular providers! I travel from Victoria to Seattle, and I cannot make calls anymore!
I agree, GSM is the way to go, but I guess it will cost a lot of money for the conventional networks to upgrade… I hope they realize that they are falling behind, and that even third world countries are progressing faster 🙂
Magazine Ecommerce
October 7, 2009 at 5:03 amIt’s just great there, last techonologies appear firstly there
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