We need messengers. More messengers
The construction of the tower was interrupted by God, who created new languages for different people, because of which they ceased to understand each other, could not continue the construction of the city and the tower and scattered throughout the earth.
(C)
Today there are a huge number of ways to exchange voice and text messages: classic telephony and email, ICQ, Skype, VKontakte, Facebook, Viber, WhatsApp, FireFox (yes, now it is also a phone), etc. And it seems that there will be more further. This is terribly inconvenient: in order to communicate with a large circle of people, a person must have a bunch of accounts and keep track of them in a timely manner. In this article I will try to summarize my thoughts on why this happens.
One of the reasons is based on the idea of fourth-generation communication protocols: LTE and Wi-MAX2 lack standardized voice channels. Those. To make a call, the phone either downgrades to 2G / 3G standards, or the call is made by application applications like Skype. This means that modern mobile communications has ceased to be telephone. And we must somehow put up with it.
Simplified cellular communication developed in the following sequence: voice, voice and data on the voice channel, voice channel and data channel and only data channel. Accordingly, the developers of physical and channel protocols actually shifted all responsibility for voice communications to the shoulders of the higher layers of the Open Systems Interaction Model (OSI).
And here the problems began. Proprietary communication services and instant messaging via data networks has become indecent. The reasons for this I see in the following (purely my IMHO, so I would like to hear objections and additions in the comments):
1. Voice communication protocols through packet-switched networks are not associated with the physical layer, so they pass by such standardization giants as IEEE and ITU. Of course you can argue, but what about H.323? Yes, there is such a generally accepted open standard, and it is widespread. But you will experience serious difficulties if you try to make friends with phones, for example, D-Link with Cisco UCM. At the same time, the service of short instant messages (in a general sense, rather than outdated SMS), so popular in the modern world, is not standardized for IP networks at all (with the exception of email, which clearly does not meet modern standards of everyday communication).
2. Too many stakeholders. Hardware manufacturers are much smaller than software manufacturers. Large hardware vendors (especially chip developers) are more likely to negotiate with each other than all the variety of software companies who want to grab their share in a niche with huge growth potential. Anyone who is able to combine all the protocols of household communications, without exaggeration, will be able to rule the world. Moreover, anyone can participate: many can create their own messenger. And here marketing falls on the heads of innocent users, since most instant messengers are similar in consumer characteristics and advertising becomes the main factor in the competition.
3. Corporations are not interested in full cooperation with each other, as the situation has not yet reached a dead end. And from the point of view of business, constantly updating services is more profitable than constantly providing the same, but high-quality service. Of course, management creates slogans and missions for companies, but one should not forget that the main goal of any commercial structure is profit-making, not user comfort, which is one of the means, but not an end in itself.
4. Classic telephony is still alive, the channels and addressing system of which can be used. To make important communications up to calling emergency services. However, this is unlikely to be convenient in the future: the principles that do not meet modern requirements and are not compatible with data transmission networks are put in the subscriber addressing system.
5. Efficiency of message delivery and delivery guarantee. Well nowhere without it.
6. It is unclear who should actually support the communication server. Ideally, the communication system should resemble a torrent, email or DNS system - i.e. to have various owners and maximum decentralization, but there are no such protocols yet, nor is there a good motivation for their creation and promotion. Enthusiasts can hardly compete with the power of market players. In the end, the monetization of virtual services brings to the network those shortcomings that were not in the initial stages of its development (in fact, this issue is worthy of a separate article).
7. Most states are interested only in listening to existing and emerging on the market communication systems, but no one wants (or does not advertise this) to participate in the creation of such systems on their own. A powerful message system, created by the explicit protectionism of the authorities, is perhaps only in the PRC. This phenomenon is absolutely not clear to me.
Summarizing the points mentioned, it seems to me that the global cause of the current situation is too many directions of development vectors for a rather narrowly specialized technology. Technologies developing under strict control outside the free environment are sometimes more effective than those born in such an environment. For example, the extremely tenacious TCP / IP stack was clearly of military origin with all the ensuing consequences. First, he defeated the OSI protocol stack, which was originally not a protocol classification model, but a full-fledged independent data transfer stack. Unfortunately, OSI as a protocol stack was defeated (more details can be found here ).
Now, TCP / IP does not stubbornly surrender to its relative IPv6, born and implemented by a free community. IPv6 protocol - it seems to be there: in all modern operating systems and in most firmware of network equipment. There are exchange points for IPv6 traffic. But in practice, I have never encountered a provider connecting an individual or legal entity with only IPv6 addresses allocated to it. Talk that tomorrow everyone will switch to the new standard, since IPv4 is doomed, has been going on for almost 10 years. For IT-technologies, this is a huge time.
If the situation continues to develop according to the laws of the free market, then as one of the possible negative results, global communication may be in the hands of 1-2 corporations that managed to absorb competitors in the course of a natural struggle. This is by far the most negative scenario. I think it’s not even worth explaining why monopolies in vital sectors are bad. Especially global monopolies.
Of course I'm exaggerating a little. Predicting a thankless job in general. You can prepare 10 radically different forecasts, but in reality it will turn out 11. Yes, and the death of classical telephony will not happen soon, but this is only a matter of time. I hope that when this happens its worthy replacement will already appear that meets the requirements:
The question remains open: who will undertake the development of such a protocol and who needs it, except for end consumers?
(C)
Today there are a huge number of ways to exchange voice and text messages: classic telephony and email, ICQ, Skype, VKontakte, Facebook, Viber, WhatsApp, FireFox (yes, now it is also a phone), etc. And it seems that there will be more further. This is terribly inconvenient: in order to communicate with a large circle of people, a person must have a bunch of accounts and keep track of them in a timely manner. In this article I will try to summarize my thoughts on why this happens.
One of the reasons is based on the idea of fourth-generation communication protocols: LTE and Wi-MAX2 lack standardized voice channels. Those. To make a call, the phone either downgrades to 2G / 3G standards, or the call is made by application applications like Skype. This means that modern mobile communications has ceased to be telephone. And we must somehow put up with it.
Simplified cellular communication developed in the following sequence: voice, voice and data on the voice channel, voice channel and data channel and only data channel. Accordingly, the developers of physical and channel protocols actually shifted all responsibility for voice communications to the shoulders of the higher layers of the Open Systems Interaction Model (OSI).
And here the problems began. Proprietary communication services and instant messaging via data networks has become indecent. The reasons for this I see in the following (purely my IMHO, so I would like to hear objections and additions in the comments):
1. Voice communication protocols through packet-switched networks are not associated with the physical layer, so they pass by such standardization giants as IEEE and ITU. Of course you can argue, but what about H.323? Yes, there is such a generally accepted open standard, and it is widespread. But you will experience serious difficulties if you try to make friends with phones, for example, D-Link with Cisco UCM. At the same time, the service of short instant messages (in a general sense, rather than outdated SMS), so popular in the modern world, is not standardized for IP networks at all (with the exception of email, which clearly does not meet modern standards of everyday communication).
2. Too many stakeholders. Hardware manufacturers are much smaller than software manufacturers. Large hardware vendors (especially chip developers) are more likely to negotiate with each other than all the variety of software companies who want to grab their share in a niche with huge growth potential. Anyone who is able to combine all the protocols of household communications, without exaggeration, will be able to rule the world. Moreover, anyone can participate: many can create their own messenger. And here marketing falls on the heads of innocent users, since most instant messengers are similar in consumer characteristics and advertising becomes the main factor in the competition.
3. Corporations are not interested in full cooperation with each other, as the situation has not yet reached a dead end. And from the point of view of business, constantly updating services is more profitable than constantly providing the same, but high-quality service. Of course, management creates slogans and missions for companies, but one should not forget that the main goal of any commercial structure is profit-making, not user comfort, which is one of the means, but not an end in itself.
4. Classic telephony is still alive, the channels and addressing system of which can be used. To make important communications up to calling emergency services. However, this is unlikely to be convenient in the future: the principles that do not meet modern requirements and are not compatible with data transmission networks are put in the subscriber addressing system.
5. Efficiency of message delivery and delivery guarantee. Well nowhere without it.
6. It is unclear who should actually support the communication server. Ideally, the communication system should resemble a torrent, email or DNS system - i.e. to have various owners and maximum decentralization, but there are no such protocols yet, nor is there a good motivation for their creation and promotion. Enthusiasts can hardly compete with the power of market players. In the end, the monetization of virtual services brings to the network those shortcomings that were not in the initial stages of its development (in fact, this issue is worthy of a separate article).
7. Most states are interested only in listening to existing and emerging on the market communication systems, but no one wants (or does not advertise this) to participate in the creation of such systems on their own. A powerful message system, created by the explicit protectionism of the authorities, is perhaps only in the PRC. This phenomenon is absolutely not clear to me.
Summarizing the points mentioned, it seems to me that the global cause of the current situation is too many directions of development vectors for a rather narrowly specialized technology. Technologies developing under strict control outside the free environment are sometimes more effective than those born in such an environment. For example, the extremely tenacious TCP / IP stack was clearly of military origin with all the ensuing consequences. First, he defeated the OSI protocol stack, which was originally not a protocol classification model, but a full-fledged independent data transfer stack. Unfortunately, OSI as a protocol stack was defeated (more details can be found here ).
Now, TCP / IP does not stubbornly surrender to its relative IPv6, born and implemented by a free community. IPv6 protocol - it seems to be there: in all modern operating systems and in most firmware of network equipment. There are exchange points for IPv6 traffic. But in practice, I have never encountered a provider connecting an individual or legal entity with only IPv6 addresses allocated to it. Talk that tomorrow everyone will switch to the new standard, since IPv4 is doomed, has been going on for almost 10 years. For IT-technologies, this is a huge time.
If the situation continues to develop according to the laws of the free market, then as one of the possible negative results, global communication may be in the hands of 1-2 corporations that managed to absorb competitors in the course of a natural struggle. This is by far the most negative scenario. I think it’s not even worth explaining why monopolies in vital sectors are bad. Especially global monopolies.
Of course I'm exaggerating a little. Predicting a thankless job in general. You can prepare 10 radically different forecasts, but in reality it will turn out 11. Yes, and the death of classical telephony will not happen soon, but this is only a matter of time. I hope that when this happens its worthy replacement will already appear that meets the requirements:
- Unification of addressing. And I hope that we don’t have to use IPv6 as a single addressing, as some of its adherents promise. Agree, typing 128-bit identifiers in the phone would be a nightmare.
- Decentralization: no country or corporation should be able to completely turn off communications in the macro region.
- Anyone can improve the client interface, but not the communication protocol.
- The scalability of the protocol (in terms of increasing the flow of transmitted data). As the global protocol stumbles, it will trigger a new wave of proprietary solutions.
- Reliability of the protocol: it must be suitable for emergency communications. So far, little can be compared with classical telephony in terms of reliability.
The question remains open: who will undertake the development of such a protocol and who needs it, except for end consumers?