To follow on from my previous post, I’ve gone about setting up SIP addressing like this for a very good reason. Other than the eventual demise of telephone numbers, I believe that larger VoIP networks will increasingly grow in size, whilst marginalizing the smaller networks. This is what happened to free email provides many years ago, and it’ll happen again to VoIP providers.
When someone looks for a free email provider, who do they turn to? Of course, Google, Hotmail or Yahoo. I had this option many years ago (hence why I have accounts at all three 🙂 ), and with the relentless pursuit of personalization and independence I went on and integrated a complete email system for my own domain. I predict the same will happen with VoIP. People will have transient VoIP addresses in the same way they have transient email accounts. I want one that will stay with me for life, and since I made the same decision for my email, it’s only natural to extend it into the VoIP realm.
To make another brash prediction, I also reckon it will be Google leading the way with alphanumeric SIP addressing – leading the way away from strictly numeric VoIP addresses. They recently licensed software from Marratech, which popular gossip says they will use to replace Google Talk. Now I know Google Talk uses libjingle for voice over XMPP, but they won’t have any way to connect Google Talk to SIP clients at the other end. Enter Marratech, who have very very good VoIP support in their software. I’m working on a pilot of their software at work, and it’s been nothing but impressive. Google could, no doubt, quite easily integrate Marratech components with Google Talk, and provide seamless SIP support in the client – making it able to communicate effectively with Jabber clients and SIP clients. Google could take another step into the telecommunications market with this, in the same way Skype did a few years ago.
Some day soon, I’ll be dialling sip:joebloggs@googletalk.com on my phone, without a care in the world as to what network they’re on, or what client they’re running. The world is slowly being integrated, and hopefully no-one will realise that it’s changing under their feet… for the better.
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