Good-bye, mobile phones; hello, mobile web!
This article was originally published at AlwaysOn Nov 2005- in light of the recent developments with the iPhone as well as the movement towards open access at the FCC. It looks like our predictions are on track. Part II of this article was posted on this blog in Dec 2006.
Take a good look at your cellphone: Remember what it looks like and what it does (or doesn't do), because in a few years both it and the system that supports it will be dead and gone.
"But wait," you say. "We only just got here! We're just now getting 3G, W-CDMA, EVDO, and high-resolution QVGA screens and cameras, multimedia messaging, and all this other cool stuff!"
Sorry, that relic of the twisted-pair landline age became history the minute Google decided to unwire San Francisco. To understand why, you need look no further than the word itself: phone, which as we all know comes from the Greek phonos, for voice. It indicates that the primary focus of the cellphone, the network, and the phone companies that provide that network is voice. Accordingly, they charge for voice calls. However, the real network isn't about voice; it's about the services, transactions, data, and facilities people are willing to pay for. Voice comes as a free extra—hell, even video calls come as a free extra.
