Will Better Routing Save Telecom?

I read a fascinating article today about a guy who wants to start an airline. What's revolutionary is this: He wants to to carry you, and up to 5 other passengers, anywhere you want to go for a maxium price of about $3 per person, per mile. Figure out where you want to go, and he'll take you there, at a price that's higher than commercial aircraft, but far less than Executive Jets.

If you were him, what would most concern you about your business plan? The cost of fuel? The cost of planes? The insurance? Nope. Just minutiae.

What really worries this guy is effective routing. Before he invests in 700 planes each capable of landing at (roughly) 700 airports, he wants to ensure that he can dispatch the right plane to the right place, using the best route, for the lowest cost. As soon as one plane lands, or a new 'ticket' is purchased, he needs to recompute it all over again. So, what's a guy to do? Hire a bunch of programmers to develop this 'traffic simulator' and prove to him it can all be done in under 5 minutes. (By contrast, the commercial airlines do this once-a-day, max, and have far less permutations.)

Once it's done, he starts building the airline. Check 'em out. When was the last time you heard of any major investment hinging on the outcome of a software simulation? Where else would this be useful?

OK, folks. What's the parallel in Telecom? It's not too late to save millions of better-optimized circuit switching. It's certainly not too late to come up with a - any - optimal voice routing in VOIP.

Cisco, are you listening? Lucent? Anyone?