Smith On VoIP

Ah The Plight of VoIP Hardware Marketers

Phoneboy, sparked by my emphatic words about the Grandstream HT-502, started a minor meme that VoIP Hardware is boring, that was picked up upon by Andy Abramson, prompting Phoneboy to visit the idea that VoIP hardware is not made for the end user, as Andy suggests it should, but for the VoIP service provider. After reading this post this morning, and an article in the last issue of Internet Telephony magazine by Rich Tehrani, I thought I’d further this discussion centering around this statement, “End Users Are Not The End Customer.”

End Users Are Not The End Customer Defined

While this does not apply to many technology markets, “End Users Are Not The End Customer” it does apply to the Voice over IP, Cellular, and realisticly the soon-to-be emerging dual mode GSM/wVoIP marketplace. For all of these services, end users are forced into a certain device by the end customer, the service provider. Here is how I define each role:

• End User = The person who ends of using the device.
• End Customer = The person who selects and or purchases the device.

So you and I are end users, but the service providers are end customers. It is because of this disconnect that the hardware we are forced to use, is not always “user friendly”, exciting, innovative, or even wanted.

What Needs To Change?

Nothing, at least in the US, is going to change until service providers support open devices. But this is not going to happen, because well the device, and the cost of it, keep you with your service provider. Now you do see some VoIP service providers with bring your own device offerings, but the majors, the Vonage’s, Packet8’s, and Sunrocket’s do not. They see no reason to offer the customers what the customer wants, the only offer the customer what is best for them.

We have nobody else to blam for this than us, the consumer. We have, for too long, allowed service providers to dictate the hardware that we can use with their service. Fortunately we have some help. The with the age of open source, and the price of communication falling to zero, these service providers will eventually have to open up and offer innovate through hardware in order to differentiate and survive. Here’s hoping this and consumer pressure will allows to become both the end user and end customer.

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