Daily Dose of iQ: Rogers' 'One Number' Connects Voice, SMS and PCs

When GetJar CEO Ilja Laurs was predicting carriers would lose voice services to VoIP mobile platforms last September, Rogers Communications was listening.

Rogers, the largest mobile sevice provider in Canada, took its One Number service out of beta last week, "allowing customers to extend the voice and SMS capabilities of their phones to any PC under a single unified phone number," writes Kevin Flitchard of Gigaom.com.

"On Monday (Feb. 13), it revealed that none other than CounterPath, the developer of the innovative over-the-top VoIP application Bria, was powering the service."

The big news here is that carriers are moving from traditional voice services to a data-driven, multi-device, "find me/follow me" platform. You no longer have to be on a phone or even on the same network.

This actually has the potential to be better for carriers than voice because the data size is so small and the calls can be redirected from their congested networks and onto Wi-Fi or terrestrial networks. Voice calls typically use between 12Kbps and 64Kbps which is very low for most networks. 

Carriers may actually be able to capture more of a customer’s network needs by providing them with access everywhere on all devices. Contracts may no longer need to be tied to single devices but more to an ecosystem. Apple has already started this with FaceTime, allowing you to answer calls by linking to an email or a phone number on multiple devices.

What Rogers is offering is the ability to change devices/network mid call. This is something that we will likely see across the marketplace very soon.

What is Rogers' motivation here? Rogers stands to regain network capacity as users are able to move off of their strictly cellular networks and move onto the Internet (Wi-Fi or terrestrial). Rogers will still handle the call, but it allows the carrier to keep you on their Internet service instead of when someone calls you and you tell them you'll Skype them back (if, for example, Rogers is not your Wi-Fi provider).

Other Canadian carriers and cable companies are also looking at Wi-Fi and VoIP offerings. Cable provider Shaw has partnered with Cisco to build a Wi-Fi network across Western Canada. The third largest mobile carrier in Canada, Telus, already offers an integrated Skype service to its customers.

In the U.S., Twilio has been trying to get into the mobile VoIP game ahead of the major carriers.

For consumers, the benefit of Rogers' One Number is the convenience of signing up to get a communication tool AND wireless Internet access. The access becomes more of a capacity, quality or location issue. With this sort of technology, it no longer matters what network you connect to as long as that network has access to the Internet. This is true global roaming.

However, it doesn't mean your Rogers bill will necessarily go down. Carriers are likely to try and maintain your monthly spend -- this is about offering you a better service experience. People may begin switching carriers based on the applications they provide and support as well as the quality of network reach and support. Right now, Rogers is offering something that others are not. This has the potential to steal early adopters from other carriers and set a new precedent. This is something other carriers will have to offer in order to combat cable providers (e.g. Shaw) that are becoming enabled to offer the same sort of service through their networks.

How will this affect wireless retailers? This has the potential to affect wireless retailers as plans could get far less complicated. What if choosing your rate plan was more like choosing Internet service? The potential downside is that consumers may no longer require handholding when choosing and activating a device. What benefits can the retailers offer when selling to consumers? The benefit may be that retailers can sell more devices onto single plans because a consumer may want their smartphone, tablet, laptop, etc. all to have access everywhere to communicate.