The End of the Phone is Near

Posted on June 12, 2012 by Jens Zander

Yes, we hardly do voice calls any more, and yes, voice-over-IP services like Skype, Google Voice etc. are available and poised to pick up whats left of the voice market. This is not a matter of “if” but rather a “when” question. Operators who still make 70-80% of their revenue from voice of course fiercely resist, wielding all kind of technical and legal weapons they can find. Therefore it’s refreshing to hear AT&T CEO Randall Stevenson predicting that “phones will soon no longer do the phone part of equation” and that soon there will be data-only plans on the market. Yep, it has happened – Verizon has made the announcement that their “data-share” plan will be available by the end of the month. The end of the phone (as we know it) draws even nearer…

Read the full Atlantic Wire article

About Jens Zander

Professor Jens Zander is professor in Radio Communication Systems at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. He has been among the few in Swedens Ny Teknik magazine's annual list of influential people in ICT that have been given the epithet “Mobile Guru”. He is one of the leading researchers in mobile communication and is the Scientific director of the industry/academia collaboration center Wireless@KTH. His research group focuses on three main areas – the efficient and scalable use of the radio frequency spectrum, economic aspects of mobile systems and application and energy efficiency in future wireless infrastructures.
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