Instead of being in demise, voice will be transformed by IP networks and the new world of VoIP to become the 'killer app foundation' of the converged future, according to John Hayduk, CTO of Indian carrier VSNL International.
Hayduk told a forum on 'the Future of Voice' at ITU Telecoms World yesterday that the transition to IP would create new applications and business models for voice, which would often be bundled with other media in flexible combination.
'It might be a voice session that is going to be added while you are browsing the Internet in a messaging session, or adding a voice session to interactive gaming, or something as simple as adding a voice session while you are watching TV so you can share it with family and friends who aren't there,' he said.
'The major migration of VoIP moving into the data world is enabling that multimedia shift, which will of course place some pressures on the network of the future and see the business models evolve.'
Hayduk forecast that the 'per minute' model would disappear, and the concept of minutes and distance would 'lose meaning.'
'Over time that commercial model will probably evolve to something closer to that of an IP transit type business where you pay for a port, some signaling and session set-up fees and then you might pay some usage based fees for that network.'
Hayduk named three pre-requisites voice service providers would need for their future success: quality, ensuring the 'application interplay interload' between carriers, and flexibility.
Also at the forum, Steve Hewson, VP of international operations and technology for Verizon Business, predicted a future based on 'cyber voice' which would ultimately result in people speaking with projected holographic images of relatives and work colleagues.
'The future of voice will continue to develop from today's IP-enabled convergence activities,' Hewson said. 'Ultimately it will virtually put you into the same place as the person you are speaking with.'
Hewson said that online presence detection would 'become the norm' regardless of the device, and devices would also become time-zone intelligent with the ability to connect users at suitable times.