In my last couple of posts: Watson, I Want To See You Now and PoV and Removing the Blindfold, I didn't elaborate on the barriers to video such as call control and the vendors themselves. Conference rooms aren't for everyone and the same is true about wearable PoV cameras. What is for everyone is simplicity and familiarity.
The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) actually was and still is a pretty decent standard; as imperfect as it is, it continues to bring together people and devices using audio. What's missing is intelligence that can be carried in the IP network that determines what kind of call I am making regardless of the device, and by that I mean voice, video or moving from a voice call to a video call on demand or going from video back to audio only.
Let me give a perfect example of simplicity and familiarity. I just want to make a video call using familiar methods. Watch here. Granted, the method is dated but the point is, I just want to make "a call," and whether it's video initially or later shouldn't really matter, but it does.
StarLeaf (background posted here) contacted me about my recent post and I reviewed their information and found a really cool piece by Brent Kelly. The document he wrote for StarLeaf is entitled: Plug'n Play Video in a Touch'n Swipe World. In the paper, Brent discusses call control and the battle for call control. But what's really cool is where Brent goes into "7 key benefits that emerge when voice and video call control are merged."
Recently, folks from PivotHead informed me that the next generation of wearable PoV cameras is on the roadmap. But whatever the adopted methodology is for moving video into the mainstream of "just making a call", it definitely isn't more of the past using silos and proprietary hooks.
I just want to make a video call and no, I don't need more monthly subscriptions, so I prefer the pay-as-you-go model. Better still, vendors and providers, please remove the barriers to visual call flow and give up hijacking call control, so as to encourage and promote visual communications and collaboration over the old silo approach. The benefits that Brent lists clearly challenge present thinking about call control and just making a call without becoming snagged by some hook.
While the old familiar NANP is still around, it's because consensus and monopolistic thinking prevailed. It's taken since 1956 to gain momentum in video calling when Bell Labs pioneered the first videophone and later when the World's Fair of 1964 premiered the Picturephone by letting the public make calls to Disneyland. While I'm not suggesting repeating a past journey, I am suggesting that visual call control must be right, federated, accessible and intuitively easy to use as a phone. I hope we're not left hanging another 50 years while vendors fight over the merger of voice and video call control and decidedly no, we don't need another monopoly.
Follow Matt Brunk on Twitter and Google+!
@telecomworx
Matt Brunk on Google+
