The Ghosts of Presence Past

pstrongBy Carl Ford/strong/p
pBlack Friday in the shopping world comes earlier and earlier.nbsp;One of our radio stations is already playing nothing but Christmas songs.nbsp; When I think about Christmas, stories likenbsp;A Christmas Carolnbsp;and It’s a Wonderful Life come to mind, and I think of the things that might have been.nbsp;One of them occurred to me when I got in contact with an old friend who was the leader of Telia’s Golden Gate project.br /br /Never heard of it? That’s a shame.nbsp;It was one of the best attempts to make VoIP and the PSTN marry on presence. It allowed you to categorize callers in groups like family, coworkers and friends, as well as keepingnbsp;unknown numbers separate. With Golden Gate, you couldnbsp;set up separate routing and availability rules for each of these groups. Caller ID appeared everywhere simultaneously, andnbsp;the system alsonbsp;tracked you by your presence. The only thing missing was SMS of the Caller ID.nbsp;br /br /In the same way time-to-live status in DNS works, or the system reports you as idle on Instant Messaging, Golden Gate followed me with a level of granularity that we do not have today.nbsp;And it was integrated into the switching of the PSTN, so the presence function supported black phones, wireless and VoIP. br /br /So why did this not become the service of the future?br /br /The standard excuse is the concern about cross elastic effects.nbsp;It will hurt our existing product line, has been the stock excuse. br /The problem I have is that the product line is already being diminished by wireless replacement. So if Golden Gate were being offered today, would the company embrace it?br /br /Again, I doubt it. Now, the wireless operator is the dominant player in headquarters, and I can’t think of a way to convince them that the cross-elastic effect is neutral here. It would mean that all paths were equal and toll plans bundled together would have to be agreed upon, while VoIP is usually free and black phones are in all you can eat pricing. Only cellular maximizes the profits, and people are running to cellular and ignoring the price.nbsp;At least they had been.br /br /The lessons of economic downturns for wireless can only be based on the recession of 2001. When that occurred, the consumers churned based on price.nbsp;br /br /But now,nbsp;the rules that separatednbsp;the wireline from the wireless carriers have been relaxed.nbsp;I believe a comprehensive offering could be made that retains customers in bad times and maybe makes a small contribution on its own.br /br /Now the real problem: Who would offer such a service?nbsp; I can’t make a case for Verizon, or ATamp;T, because of their efforts to win the smartphone battle.nbsp;T-Mobile and Sprint don’t own a landline business, so they are a poor choice too, and the cable operators still have a bad taste in their mouth from their PIVOT deal with Sprint. br /br /The Golden Gate Ghost will have to remain a ghost at least here.nbsp;In Sweden, maybe Telia can unshackle itself and bless us, everyone, with the innovation they saw in presencenbsp;during Christmases past./p