Receiving a phone bill in the mail – much like death and taxes – has become a virtual certainty for billions of people all across the world.

 

But I think things are changing – and I think fewer and fewer people will be getting phone bills in the coming years.

 

How could this happen, you ask? What type of force could be so powerful to actually kill off telecom billing systems?   The answer is a $600 billion behemoth called the global advertising spend coupled with the emergence of the “conversational web”.

 

While traditional Telecom networks are monetized via subscription and usage based billing -- the web has evolved into a killer platform where a wide variety of services (including communication services) are capable of being subsidized by advertisers. 

 

A recent study by the Online Publishers Association (OPA) shows that a typical consumer internet user spends 47% o their time online looking at content, 33% of their time communicating, and 15% of their time shopping. These statistics show that “communications” are becoming increasingly contextual to the web itself. Whether I am shopping online, reading news, or looking at my friends on Facebook – I am now able to use the exact same interface to reach out and communicate with folks.

 

As Doc Searls famously said in the Clue Train Manifesto, “The web is about markets. All markets are conversations.” Who needs a phone bill when communications services, subsidized by advertising, are proliferating on the web and on mobile devices.