> As someone with a heavy background, it would break a fair bit of the PSTN
As it stands, I think quite a few consumers are ready to just walk away from PSTN unless something pretty drastic is done quite soon.
If they still made an iPod like device that ONLY included data, I'd switch to it today. I can get my calls via any of the various online services.
As it stands, my phone is in do not disturb mode so that only calls in my address book get through.
I previously thought of this as something old people do because they can't type on a phone, but I tried it, and it does provide a more rapid, conversational way of creating text.
I'm sure it will live on in many places that aren't concerned with customer satisfaction, though.
We really need federated communicator.
Federation has enormous downsides: since anyone can join the network and send messages, there aren't good ways to police bad actors.
The two largest federated communications networks today are email and PSTN. They're both infested with spammers.
There are many ideas to stop spam like proof of work.
Main reason for spam in email and PSTN is legacy protocols, which were created long time ago and cannot be significantly improved without breaking compatibility.