Is The Traditional Phone Company A Dying Breed?

Despite deregulation in the telecom industry a while back, it seems that like some amorphous creature that cannot stay separated, the big Bells are reforming. AT&T, bought out by SBC last year, has plans to buy BellSouth. Extreme VoIP writer Todd Spangler seems to think that this has to do with the VoIP threat, as well as the new telephony competitors (cable, satellite, powerline, municipal Wi-Fi, etc.) for customer dollars. Basically, he says, now you don’t need the phone company.

I’m inclined to agree. I don’t need the phone company. I haven’t used a landline in maybe nine years, except when forced to. I don’t miss it. But I need a cellular provider and I’m not impressed with the options. Though not having a landline is not for everyone. Many people just feel safer/ more comfortable having one. That’s fine.

However, if everyone could get the same call quality, features and service as PSTN lines, but for less, using VoIP, why wouldn’t they? And there’s the rub. Most people don’t yet know what VoIP can offer them. Though like the Internet, that’ll change over time. Once VoIP catches on, gets better call quality, guaranteed e-911 service, business telephony features and CRM, and is protected from load-balancing problems, etc., traditional telephony will become a dinosaur, awaiting a fatal blow from the VoIP comet. A century-plus of telecom monopoly will be completely gone. Or will it? Maybe in some countries anyway, where the rulers don’t own the telecoms.