People Search News & Views

The pace of change in communications services continues to increase and a whole spectrum of unprecedented choice is becoming available to consumers. So too is the reach of technology – with few corners of the planet not yet able to tap into the wealth of opportunity now available. Internet usage has continued to grow strongly and, as products and services follow, fundamental changes are occurring in the nature of commercial activity.

These affects will determine the way you people search to get in touch with others whether it be via a cell phone, instant messaging or email. Think about how you are already affected now, do you use VoIP now instead of your land line phone? 

As with all fundamental changes there are clear pressure points. The most significant and obvious for communications has been the explosion in demand for reliable, high-speed communications services - broadband – and the capacity of communications carriers to respond to this is probably the largest single determinant to which consumers will ultimately gain most.

Consider these significant pressure areas for the traditional carriers:

Always-on Convergent Devices

Convergent devices are increasingly available, and they bring new possibilities in almost every guise. More importantly, the prices for them are continuing to fall and most are now within the reach of the mass market. Almost anyone can now select their preferred aggregation of PDA, cell phone, MP3 player, camera, video recorder, GPS, Internet terminal, radio, and television – and carry it with them wherever they go!

And what will happen to network traffic once these devices become the next enterprise tools for corporate email and messaging? Early evidence shows that companies which give these devices to employees actually decrease mobile phone usage by approximately 50 percent, but the overall load for the carriers increases in both volume and complexity.

3G has been viewed by the carriers as the best bet for network upgrades and this has seen some significant investment in many countries. However, 3G will not solve all of the industry’s problems. Not everyone is positioned for or can afford the investment required to deliver 3G. Thankfully, other, lower power, distribution technologies such as numerous Personal Area Network (PAN) and Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) technologies are proving to be effective and secure for high-speed device-to-device communication, and 2.5G will probably satisfy the most important user segments until the rollout of 3G networks can be completed.

A new type of competitor is emerging in the global wireless industry and successfully positioning themselves between the traditional carriers and their historical consumer base. These new players don’t own any network assets, they have successfully unbundled themselves from expensive network assets by purchasing capacity (minutes and bits) in bulk. The emergence of these new players is destabilizing the world of the traditional carrier and playing havoc with their long term planning.

For example, an estimated 70 percent of the cellular traffic in the US is generated from within cars. If auto manufacturers started bundling voice and data services into the price of their vehicles it could translate into a considerable loss of retail revenue for the wireless carriers.

Instant messaging now delivers more mail than the US postal service each day. Some analysts predict that the majority of all real-time online communications (voice and text) will eventually be driven through instant messaging technology. And yet, Instant Messaging brings yet another threat to the traditional carriers.

For instance, with Voice over IP delivered through an instant messaging platform it would be impossible for the carrier to charge on the basis of voice minutes. How then, is the carrier to develop their charging strategy for the long term?

The inevitable result for the communications consumer is change – change which will deliver increasing variety and choice in the devices we use and the organisations through which we gain access to them. Traditional carriers appear destined to evolve into entities focused upon networks and hardware, whilst new resellers will deliver bundled services to consumers with more creative pricing and relevance.

Unhappily, a byproduct of this increasing choice and restructuring is that the consumer will increasingly be left to contend with the demise of the less glamorous but essential services (like directory services) for people search that the traditional carriers were once well placed to provide.