An Eye on Emerging Telephony

Do you think of "triple-play", "quadruple-play", VoIP or some other buzzword when thinking of convergence of voice and data? If so, you're missing out on the whole other world of "emerging telephony" where really innovative applications are being built on the network (and I say network referring to a network where voice is just another application). I've been following the Emerging Telephony Conference (Etel) which has just finished on the O'Reilly Radar and here are a couple of things which caught my eye:

• Jaiku, a company focused on "presence" launched at ETel. You can sign up and create a live profile but the real fun starts once you download their application onto your mobile (only Nokia series 60 supported currently). Jaiku can then share your presence with your contacts, provide you with their presence (if phone is on, off, meeting mode, etc.) and location (what cell tower are they near). I'm going to play with this in the office next week (maybe Riyaad or Safdar will impress me and have our test Nokia's loaded up with the app on Sunday morning). For more information check out Brady Forrest's interview with a founder.
• I've been meaning to install and play with Asterisk (an open source PABX) for ages. These guys got a lot further than me and created some neat applications. Considering that I've also been meaning to start taking Arabic lessons for just as long, the BanglaBollo service really stood out. It's a language learning platform designed to assist people learning Bengali - you listen to some words, then record how you would say them and they later get listened to (and graded by) a tutor. Now if only I had the time to create an a similar version for learning Arabic...
• The Flat Planet Phone Company

  advanced phone services such as Hosted PBX, Mobile to VoIP connectivity, Disposable Numbers , Virtual IVR and many more....[your] own branded web site and all the tools to market the Flat Planet services under [your] own brand name.

  The system includes a complete hosted softswitch, billing and customer management system. With the unique Flat Planet business model,no additional investment, equipment or manpower is needed.

• Grand Central that promises one (phone) number to rule them all. No more missing calls if you aren't home or out of the office or switch telco's. Or at least that's the idea...
• Cell Crypt which provides (you guessed it) encrypted calls between mobile phones through a client that you install. Let's just hope that your phone wasn't compromised before you installed the app!

Of course, you could always create your own phone mash-up...