Interconnect Voice – A future run by machines?

We’ve seen it in every industry, every sci-fi book or movie, the future is going to be run by machines. Robots and artificial intelligence are knocking on the doors of every industry. Even ones that seem like they shouldn’t. So what about interconnect voice? What’s the future of interconnect voice and where do robots and artificial intelligence fit in this industry? Well, if you have been paying attention, it's pretty clear that the future of interconnect voice is going to be a future where it is run by machines.

There are several reasons, that include:

• Interconnect voice is a commodity (low differentiation, power is to the buyer)

• High complexity of operating (technology is constantly evolving)

• Marketplace is dynamic and constantly changing in real and near real-time

• Margins are incredibly thin and in some cases negative

• Data volumes associated with this business are beyond human beings' capacity for comprehension

All these reasons, and there are plenty more, make interconnect voice a perfect industry for continued automation. Automation that will end up eliminating 50, 60, 70 or even 80% of the staff that are currently involved in the day-to-day management of interconnect voice. That’s great news for the companies, not so great for the employees, but it is: a) inevitable and b) the “right” thing for the industry.

So, What will the interconnect voice industry look like in 5 years?

Very different.

5 years from now, there will be less people in the role of buyers and sellers. There will be contracts between companies, and the machines will do the handling of when and where to send traffic based on all the available information and business policies in force at the time of the call. In our solution, we are already working towards supporting that architecture. Our platform crunches an array of information at the time of the call and makes the routing decision. The staff that surrounds the interconnect voice world will continue to be displaced and “pushed out” further from routing, quality, buying, and selling. Finance people will perform the analysis, NOC staff will get involved only when there is a system problem. Even quality will be handled by the machines.

So, like it or not, the future of interconnect voice will be run by machines. Just like pretty much every other industry that’s out there. Carriers and their teams can try to fight it, or they can embrace it and be at the forefront of the next major evolutionary event in interconnect voice.