Are cell phone carriers a thing of the past?

Image courtesy of Jens Kronen at Flickr.com

Cell phones have been around since 1973, and began being commercialized ten years later. I think when they came out we would never have been able to imagine where we are today thanks to the beginning on the mobile phone. The freedom of being anywhere but still being able to contact each other and have a voice conversation may have been novelty back then, but now the technological advances now let a cell phone know exactly where another person is located, have a video chat and even exchange data like photos, documents or multimedia files. We have come a long way, but more changes seem to be coming and fast. In this fast-paced industry, we have, up to now, depended on cell phone carriers to receive and make phone calls, but more and more this service begins to look almost obsolete. With the creation of smartphones and the new apps being developed that offer communication tools like messaging, live chat and calls, the questions begin to rise: do we still need cell phone carriers?

 Taking a step back

Before we get into answering that question, it’s important to take a step back and analyze the role of cell phones in the past, and nowadays, as well as the needs of the consumers. In the 1990’s there was a big transition in communication, shifting from texting on beepers to making calls on your mobile phone. At that moment in time, making a call and being able to be anywhere was almost magical. This service at the same time also allowed us to send a short message service or better known as SMS, which also innovated from only being able to send numbers on a beeper to actual words and phrases. To connect to someone all you needed was their number, and with this single piece of information you could either call or message the person to contact them.

 Understanding where we are

Today when we meet someone we truly want to keep in touch with we may ask a series of questions like: What’s your e-mail?, What’s your WhatsApp number?, How can I find you on Facebook?, and maybe at the very end they will ask for your actual number. Things have definitely changed, and almost all of these changes can be attributed to different social media and the development of apps that have given people a simpler way to get in touch. Today most people will rely on their Facebook or WhatsApp to keep in touch, even to the point that some may question why they are still paying for their cell phone carrier plan.

Image courtesy of  James Sann at Flickr.com

In this new day and age, it all comes down to the easiest way to communicate or contact someone, while multitasking with other activities. Something that has become essential with these social media alternatives to communicating has been that the directory is what you expect it to be. Let’s say you want to use a new messaging service that just came out, but your friends are not part of it yet. Even if it’s promoted as the next big thing, you will probably find no utility for it, because you can’t communicate with the people you want to, so what’s the point. So, yes we have more options to communicate like Google, Skype, email, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, SMS and the list goes on, but now the problem becomes which one do I use? What will usually end up happening is that you’ll start slowly creating a circle of friends in each type of communication, where you start identifying which is the easiest channel to reach each of your friends and family members. Seems like a lot of work, right? Well, now there are even more trends and it’s simplifying this to the point we can find everyone we need in one place, instead of having the fragmented messaging and phone service we have today. At the end of the day, I think we can all agree though that most of the channels we use today to communicate are via apps or social media tools.

 Will apps really replace cell phone carriers?

Image courtesy of  Robert Scoble at Flickr.com

The new players in communication are not rival telecommunication companies, but instead social media and VoIP have taken this industry by storm. People are now beginning to rely much more on services like WhatsApp than their carrier’s SMS. People have started to see the how their costs are cut and they are still able to reach out to friends and loved ones as part of their data plan. In response to these trends many carriers have made deals with WhatsApp as part of the plans offered to their clients, allowing them to have the best of both worlds. If we will ever get to the point of completely eliminating cell phone carrier services is unclear, but evidence is certainly aiming in that direction.