Voice is dead, but voice as data lives, and it offers the ability to move beyond stove-piped narrowband communications to more feature-rich and differentiated communications.

That’s the word from journalist Doug Mohney, who opened up the SmartVoice Conference today at ITEXPO (News - Alert) in Miami. (It’s not too late to join us here at the Miami Beach Convention Center in room B211. The SmartVoice program runs through 5 p.m.)

It’s not voice itself that’s dead, explains Mohney; rather, it’s narrowband voice that is dead. In fact, people have been trying to find an excuse to shut down the narrowband voice network. Voice is also dead because it’s a commodity service, he says.

Even the over-the-top voice players, are stuck in a rut because they’re not adding a lot of value, he says, noting that most OTT players talk about how they are like Skype (News - Alert).

And there’s minimal and decreasing profitability in voice, he says, adding that even the sacred cow of international is gone.

“The thrill is gone,” he adds.

“But guess what?” Mohney continues. “We can get excited about voice again when we talk about smart voice services.”

Once we take voice and make it data, and make it searchable and indexable, we can process it just like Hypervoice does. Voice can be better quality.

“You need to think about adopting and expanding,” Mohney says, and he is urging everybody running a business to think about caller ID, voice biometrics, hypertext, and think about how it can help their business.

It can be tough to get out of your comfort zone, he says, but it is necessary to deliver new service and benefit from what’s next. And while you shouldn’t expect help from tier 1 carreirs, Google, Microsoft, and the FCC (News - Alert), Mohney says, “there are lot of people in this room that you should be working with.”

That includes Martin Geddes, co-founder and executive director of the Hypervoice Consortium, who is now giving his presentation at SmartVoice Conference.