IMS, the Quad Play, Blended Services, FMC

Fairly far along in my third score of existence, I don’t really need any more reminders than the mirror, an increasingly crowded medicine cabinet and a near-encyclopedic-knowledge of early ’80s pop music to know that I’m getting old. Yet, in my line of work I am confronted almost daily with the slap-in-the-face insinuation that I am a hill-descending, sunset-basking, forgot-to-switch-off-my-turn-signal dinosaur — a mere metaphor or two away from oblivion.

Let’s face it. Telecommunications is for the young — as any PowerPoint-wielding marketing type from a network equipment provider will tell you, incessantly. While radio talk shows still value the 35-50 demographic to attract the bulk of advertisers, Internet service providers, telecommunications carriers and cable operators have jettisoned the Soylent Green set for a much younger audience. One of the few things that the telecommunications universe has reached agreement on over the past few years is that the mature end of its customer base for next-generation services is living in a dorm room.

I have tried to take in stride the fact that the service providers I have had relationships with for decades have abandoned me for my children. Adding insult to the injury that this break-up has caused me is the cold reality that for at least the next several years — until my kids are out of the house — I still will be paying for these services that I am no longer qualified to consume. Call it high-tech alimony.

On the whole, though, I’m not really feeling slighted. I understand business and, frankly, I am a lousy prospect for the next-generation of user-centric services. Besides the fact that I feel I already pay too much for communications and entertainment services, I’m just not a bells-and-whistles kind of guy. The odds of getting me to dedicate more of my precious paycheck to the newest ringback tones, time-shifted television, the ability to take calls on my TV or watch “The Sopranos”” on the two-inch screen of my mobile phone are very low at best. I suppose I qualify as somewhat of a sports nut, but the ability to view a play at the plate from 47 different angles just doesn’t thrill me. Isn’t that the director’s job? I know I’m a dusty relic, but this interactivity stuff is just too much work.

And that’s another thing I’m not really crazy about. Since voice and IP first were put together a few years ago, the marketing machines of equipment makers have conjured up this new world of ubiquitous communications, where work, leisure and home life all blend together. This picture of the future is anything but comforting for me. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my work as much as the next person. But after 12 hours or so of toiling for The Man, the last thing I want is for The Man to be bugging me at home or at my kids’ Little League game.

But just when I was resigned to being an observer instead of a participant in the next-generation of communications and entertainment services, I was struck by a revelation. What if IMS, quadruple play, blended services, fixed mobile convergence and all those other mostly nebulous terms I write about daily weren’t just about abundance and bombardment? What if all this newfangled technology and interactivity had a second, complementary purpose, such as bringing control to the utter digital chaos that ubiquitous communications portends to bring to my life?

Service providers and the equipment makers that seek their attentions have been so obsessed with increasing ARPU through the delivery of new services targeted at the always-connected and attention deficient that they have all but ignored the most appealing aspects of IP communications to my demographic: the ability to construct virtual boundaries between work and leisure and simplify our already complicated lives. I want simultaneous ringing and the ability to redirect calls on the fly or based on time of day or caller ID, not so I don’t miss an important call while I’m at the beach, but so I don’t have to answer a call when I’m at the beach.

I know it’s heresy to suggest this, but it may turn out that service providers are snubbing their best revenue prospects by abandoning old fogies for the teens and “tweens” crowd. I’m certainly not suggesting that service providers stop pursuing the interactive and convergence opportunities that IP communications creates or that marketers stop targeting services at Generation X and younger. It would be foolish and tragic not to fully exploit this tremendous potential of the current convergence movement. I’m not saying that we need to put the Genie back in the bottle. I’m suggesting that an entirely new source of revenue could be generated by making available and promoting the tools that will ensure we are the masters of that Genie and not its slaves.

All I’m looking for is to gain a little control of my life, so I can find time to turn a few pages of a novel or spend more time with my kids — even if I have to wait for them to watch the latest version of “Lost” on their mobile phones.