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Call Telephone Services

May 25th, 2005

Wouldn’t it be nice if the phone system was as easy to use as internet services? Why is it so hard to send an SMS from a computer? Why is it nigh-on impossible to get the phone system to alert your e-mail if you get an SMS?

Well, it turns out the telecoms people thought so too, so they invented PARLAY - a set of standard APIs for talking to telephony back-ends. Nice. And then, because the APIs were kinda bizarre and complex (because this is the phone system, after all), they went and invented PARLAY X, a simplified web service layer on top of the plain old Parlay API. Schweet!

Now it turns out the local telephone company Telenor is involved in this. But there isn’t a peep about how to get access to the stuff, or how to get involved. It’s like they don’t actually want anyone to use this stuff.

Netcom has a dead simple HTTP-to-SMS message gateway. Better than nothing, but no way for outsiders to hook into their infrastructure. Disappointing, but at least they’ve priced it reasonably and made it reasonably easy to sign up for.

If we are ever going to get beyond downloadable ring-tones and java games then the services will need to hook back into the IT infrastructure. Parlay gives us the means, but as long as it remains locked in the R&D labs, phone services will continue to be either e-mail or WAP based.

Look at how standard APIs make the net flourish: I posted pictures to my blog from my phone via standard e-mail, through Flickr’s server in the states to my blog’s server. None of the actors here know any details about the others. All happens thanks to standardized APIs.

Telenor and Netcom should be pushing this kinda integrated services to drive more MMS traffic, but it seems to be too hard for them to understand. For example, why not have a personal log where all my incoming and outgoing SMS messages are tracked? Why not the same with MMS? Why not create a blog that is phone addressable (i.e. a person sends an SMS to themselves –> the SMS gets routed to the blog instead of back to themselves).

Entry Filed under: Software, Links