Here at Telephony Research, we like to build things.
To be more specific: we like to build telephony services.
To be even more specific, we like to build kick-ass telephony services.
The Problem
The entire telephony world sucks right now. Since the mid 1900s, very little has changed in the telephony landscape.
- The PSTN is still a huge legacy network controlled by several extremely large corporations.
- Making phone calls is expensive (1 cent or more, per minute).
- Getting phone numbers (DIDs) is still not a simple thing (number blocks are assigned to various companies, which typically require you to have voice service with your DID).
- Caller ID Name is not supported over cellular networks.
- There is a complete lack of international standards for making phone calls and receiving / sending Caller ID name.
- International telephony is insanely expensive.
- VoIP carriers tend to have issues with low quality voice.
- The industry is plagued with horrible sales practices (sales guys, manual provisioning, etc.).
- There is a total lack of operational transparency with most telcos, you have no idea what is being done, how things work, or any other data.
- Most voice traffic is completely un-encrypted, making the entire industry vulnerable to numerous security problems.
- And MUCH more.
What all these problems really boil down to is lack of openness and talent.
While the web has really taken off, attracting tons of developers and money, telecommunications has remained largely unattractive to programmers. Since many telecommunications protocols are complex, cost a lot of money to work with, and not adequately documented—the telecommunications industry has succeeded in:
- Keeping new developers out of the industry.
- Lowering the bar for development talent (thereby decreasing overall product and service quality).
- Making progress slower and slower as time progresses.
This is completely unacceptable.
My Two Cents
I’m a programmer. When I first got introduced to the telephony world, I was shocked at how hard it was to find:
- Information on telephony technologies.
- Getting started information.
- How the public telephone network works, and what technologies are used.
- How old the protocols and technologies are that power voice services.
- How many insane regulations and laws there are which only serve to make the industry worse (in numerous ways) for consumers.
If telephony technologies were simpler and more modern, then instead of keeping new developers away, new developers would be attracted to the industry, and be better equipped to build services, companies, and projects that make users happy.
In almost every industry—if you have more developers working in the field, progress will be quicker, users will be happier, and more wealth will be generated (by all parties).
Our Solution
Our solution to the current problems of the industry is simple: we build services which make telephony simpler and more elegant for developers.
Our hope is that by providing tools that developers can easily build on top of, we’ll:
- Enable new developers to easily get involved in the industry.
- Educate developers on how the technologies work, and how they can be improved upon.
- Encourage competition from new startups.
- Enable developers to generate better products and services that consumers will love.
To this end, we’re heavily focused on continuous improvement. Every day we work tirelessly to fix bugs, add new features, and reduce complexity in our software—and make the telephony industry just a tad bit better—line by line.
If you’re a developer thinking about getting involved in some new technologies: don’t hesitate! Feel free to shoot us an email: hi@telephonyresearch.com, and get in touch—we’d love to help you out in any way possible.
And if you’re interested in checking out what we’re up to, be sure to:
Let’s do this thing.
