May/June 2001

BY RALPH HAYON

Buying that computer in 1998, I never envisioned that three years later my son would be plugging an electric guitar into it. (Who would have thought he would take to the guitar?!) But this is why the computer is one of the most brilliant inventions to hit mankind. It is saturated with Enduring Value.

Now let's look at telephony. It too is one of man's greatest inventions, letting people communicate quickly and easily. But as great as it is, it still has not achieved the Enduring Value of the personal computer or the Internet. A telephone or telephone system purchased today will have the same functions and capabilities ten years from now. No more, no less. The feature set is fixed and typically it is impossible, unrealistic, or difficult to add functions or capabilities.

However, the Internet has changed all this. The Internet and Voice over Internet technologies, developments, and standards have created an environment for new IP-based telecommunication systems that enable significant enduring value.

Adding Valuable Color To The Black Phone
This all begins, though, with how we view the telephone. Is the telephone just a very simple and stupid device that merely allows you to receive and make calls? Or does it become a feature-rich communications center that can be easily enhanced with new capabilities? For the most part, our world is based on the "black phone," -- a fairly simple style of phone that dates back more than 70 years when all phones were black and just consisted of a handset and dialer (now keypad).

Does the "black phone" still fit in our future? Surely. Should it be the basis or center of where we want telephony to be? I hope not.

When I think about the black phone, I think about my family's first car. It was very exciting for us. Both of my parents are immigrants, and in 1966 they purchased a brand new Dodge Dart, two years after our move from New York City to the suburbs of Long Island. I can still remember that new car smell. I also remember that this car had power nothing -- no power windows, steering, or brakes. The dashboard and interior were made up of the same brown painted metal as was on its exterior (hitting this dashboard on a short stop hurt). I think the radio was just AM, and I am sure that Detroit's finest automotive engineers didn't even have dreams about power seats back then.

Then I think about the phone that we had in 1966. Even the automotive industry has made more progress in the "user interface" of their products than the telecommunications industry.

It was for this reason that my skin began to itch when at a recent conference, one of our industry leaders described a world centered around black phones. Where is the Enduring Value with this strategy?

The Internet has sent a wakeup call to all: The world has more colors than we have been seeing. This can apply to telephony, but only once new norms are demanded by the end user.

I'm glad to say that the word is out and end users now understand that telephones and systems can be different. Emerging IP telephony systems now boast innovative application delivery and IP telephones providing users with unlimited Enduring Value. After all, I'm not certain as to which applications I will need on my telephones three years from now. But, it is something I no longer have to worry about.

Ralph Hayon is president and CEO of congruency, Inc., a VoIP infrastructure platform and services provider to broadband data carriers for end-to-end IP telecommunications. He can be reached at [email protected].

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