The Ultimate Backwards Compatibility Trick

Jeff would like to get rid of the PSTN.  So would almost every other telephony geek in the world.  The trouble is, people don't care.  They just want to make reliable phone calls cheaper, in the same way that they have been doing for a hundred years.  Dial a number, and talk to somebody, or leave a message. Period.  And it has to work like that too.  Period.  All the machinations have to be hidden under the covers, completely, or it ain't gonna sell. Period.  The people that make it transparent will be the next kings of the world.  As a friend told me recently when we were talking about convergence, geeks will put up with a lot, but regular folk will not.