Today I had the pleasure to participate in a debate here at the University of Oxford with Kevin Baughan, Head of Technical Strategy at Virgin Media.
It was very interesting because we discussed about the media in general but more specifically about were the Internet and mobiles communications were heading.
Some people argued that mobile companies were going to die because of Wi-Max, others said that operators would adjust and still continue to have profits, not as nice as it could be today (for some of them) but profitable.
Where everyone seemed to agree was in the fact that fixed telephony is less and less attractive, that is nothing new but it put me to think when it was that I had a fixed line at home for the last time, and after thinking for a while I realized that I haven’t had a fixed phone for almost 4 years already.
You may think that I am disconnected from the world… oh no, I would say the opposite; the thing is that all I need is a mobile phone and access to the internet.
The apartment where I was living before coming to Oxford had wireless access that was provided as part of the services of the building, yes, like water or electricity, and here, Internet is provided by the University.
Most of my calls are to Oxford, London, Switzerland and Argentina all of them are for free when I call with my SIP (VoIP) provider, VoipDiscount.com. Whenever I need to contact someone urgently I use the phone.
But I don’t need to carry my computer anywhere I go, I have a Nokia E70 with Wi-Fi capabilities, this mean that I can connect to the internet from my mobile and call for free almost all the time.
Personally, I believe that in the short term both fixed lines and mobile operators will start to charge less and less as pressure from alternatives grows and we will see more boundless like the one from Neuf in France where you receive almost everything and you only pay fixed amount per month. And yes, Wi-Max is probably going to be very big.