Day One VON Europe 2006

Jeff Pulver calls it VON blur. I reached Stockholm in time to attend a welcome lunch at Stockholm City Hall and then catch the train out to the convention center. Immediately I was in conversation with old friends and interesting new acquaintances right up to a few minutes before I appeared on the panel "What Industry are We In?"

In brief opening remarks I suggested many in the VoIP industry are still focused on digital POTS - using VoIP to reproduce traditional fixed-line telephone service - yes, with a few extra bells and whistles, but POTS none-the-less. I suggested we could do better. From the consumer point of view, the most significant change in telephony in the past 15 years has been the shift from telephones at fixed locations to personal telephones, i.e. your mobile.

To have a real impact on consumers, we (the VON industry) will have to bring extended IP communications capabilities to mobile devices. Think Skype on your mobile handset, but with your choice of text, voice, photos or see-what-I-see video delivered live (conversation) or near realtime (SMS, IM, VoiceSMS, photos, etc.), and optionally captured for possible later posting to your blog or home page on MySpace, Cyworld or the like.