Customer-owned Networks and ZapMailmail
A short history-of-business article that tries to use the past to predict the future of WiFi and VoIP: Shirky: Customer-owned Networks and ZapMail.
This was found on Slashdot. The analysis of ZapMail is probably correct: FedEx was stupid for thinking that customers wouldn’t go buy fax machines instead of relying on FedEx’s expensive fax service. This is the first time I’ve heard of ZapMail.
This analogy probably applies to VoIP: Cisco’s ATA appliance will probably be similar in effect to the fax machine, e.g., Vonage. The article is probably wrong or mistaken about “WiFi”, though. What he’s calling “WiFi” is actually a description of NAT; the 802.11x portion is neither here nor there if the main affect of “WiFi”, according to the article, is to allow consumers not to bother with getting a whole new DSL or cable modem subscription for additional computers in the household. This is what NAT is about. WiFi allows me to sit on the couch with a laptop without running a cable across the floor of the living room, which may make the router appliaces more appealing, but that’s about it.
802.11x will have a different effect with phone companies, which may ruin their deployment of 3G. This is a better argument and analogy.