FCC Preparing Transition To VoIP Telephone Network 250
mantis2009 writes "The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) published a request for public comment (PDF) on an upcoming transition from the decades-old circuit-based Public Switched Telephone Network to a new system run entirely with Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology. This is perhaps the most serious indication to date that the legacy telephone system will, in the near future, reach the end of its life. This public commenting phase represents a very early stage in what will undoubtedly be a very complex transition that makes this year's bumpy switch from analog to digital television look relatively easy."
Dial-up is all there is some places... (Score:5, Informative)
The death of dial-up has been greatly exaggerated. No broadband available where I am in NY, within 50 miles of Syracuse.
Dave
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Re:Dial-up is all there is some places... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm 44. I'm pretty sure POTS will outlive me.
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VoIP requires broadband internet connectivity. We can't even manage to get decent dialup internet service to everywhere in this country (the USA), let alone 100% broadband penetration. We might get some form of wireless broadband sooner (like WiMax), but even then I'd think that we'll have 100% cellphone coverage before we have 100% broadband coverage. Also, I haven't been too impressed with VoIP thusfar, I think there needs to be improvements to it before you can ex
Re:Dial-up is all there is some places... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have broadband but I oppose disconnecting the old phone system for the following reasons:
- When my DSL stopped working a few weeks ago (DSLAM needed replacement) I then used dialup to access the internet. 50k is slow but still useful for emailing, listening to online radio, or even watching youtube.
- Dialup is portable. I can use it any place and any hotel that has a phone line. No need to pay the outrageous $5-10/night the hotel charges for wireless or wired access.
- If a three strike law happens, my DSL or Cable ISP might pull the plug, but my dialup will still be there for backup.
- This morning when the electricity died, the wired phone was the only thing that still worked. Good to have for emergency.
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Some very good arguments.
Regarding the "dialup is portable" theory ... you're right, but I find that these days 3G/HDSPA has pretty much replaced dialup for the "portable connection while travelling" market. They sell those 3G USB dongles and pre-paid access at pretty competitive prices now, and coverage is good (at least where I live - most places big enough to have a hotel, will have 3G coverage, and the dongles can roll back to 2.5G EDGE if required). Speeds are better than dialup (even on EDGE) and alth
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>>>They sell those 3G USB dongles and pre-paid access at pretty competitive prices now
My dialup costs $7 per month. Are they competitive with that? I see Verizon charges $50 for every 500 megabytes. That 500 MB is equivalent to only 22 hours of dialup downloading.
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Except that in many places, you really are already on a VOIP network, you just have POTS on the last mile.
Plus, this isn't a plan to force the networks to go to VOIP, they are already pushing for that on their own due to the lowered costs of running them. This is the "how do we let them do this without letting them screw the customer over by removing services or reducing quality of service" plan.
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The majority of many telco's backbones are already converted to packet switched (IP) networks vs circuit switched (POTS) networks. Packet switching has a huge cost saving vs circuit switching. And yes, it works with any sort of data that is already being sent over the lines. We aren't talking Skype or SIP here, we are talking lower level type of hardware/interfacing.
What the real question is (the one the FCC is asking), what sort of measures should be taken to ensure that as the network goes full IP (and po
Re:Dial-up is all there is some places... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dial-up is all there is some places... (Score:5, Insightful)
But can you do dial-up over VOIP?
I mean, sure, you'd think that if the phone network was IP-based, you'd be able to get general Internet access through it, too. Is that really the case, though?
First issue, is this VOIP-to-the-home, or just VOIP-to-the-switch-box? A logical first step would be to switch over to VOIP just before the last-mile, to allow people to keep their existing phones - which (I think) would kill dial-up and faxes. A later second step would be to move the final transition point to the telephone box at the house.
And even if it is running VOIP all the way to the home, you have to assume that the telco will allow people to connect to the Internet via their network. This is something regulation can solve (by forcing the issue), but still, that means new equipment. And most likely new fees. And quite possibly a loss of choice over ISP.
So there will have to be some concession to people still using dial-up - especially if they're not planning on moving the entire network to VOIP all at once.
In short? Yes (Score:3, Informative)
I have Vonage service and have an alarm system with a modem and it works fine. Vonage in fact supports up to 56K modems AFAIK.
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It may be that they run VoIP to your closest exchange and keep the analogue lines to your house.
But then it comes down to the encoders used what real bandwidth you get for dial up modems and faxes.
A much more important factor here is that if telephony starts to go over an IP network instead will that traffic be legally protected against wiretapping and other actions?
Re:Dial-up is all there is some places... (Score:4, Interesting)
DSL isn't IP over voice. Your typical ADSL configuration is IP running on the same copper alongside voice (or more properly, POTS). It can also be run on copper without POTS (sometimes called "naked DSL"), but the Bells don't like that because it means letting people drop their landlines.
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It can also be run on copper without POTS (sometimes called "naked DSL"), but the Bells don't like that because it means letting people drop their landlines.
You're right, and it's a terrible shame ... I went 'naked' a year ago and I love it (I live in Australia, telco regulations here have forced our equivalent of the US 'bells' to allow competitors to offer ULL, i.e. naked-DSL, links). Beats paying line rental on a phone line I made about 2 call on per year, and my ISP offers a high quality VoIP product for cheap calls worldwide. Love it :)
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But it's also not that simple. The available bandwidth is extremely dependent on the distance from the CO. This is why you can't always get DSL even though you can get POTS-- the further you go, the more the impedance of the wire attenuates the signal. The frequency characteristics o
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just a small correction for you. a true pots switch port cannot carry DSL. its the port that does the low-pass filtering. just before the switch, the copper pair is split (just like it is at the CPE). One pair off the split goes to the DSLAM, the other goes to the phone switch. Just like the cable company, which squeezes many communication channels over a single copper pair, so does the phone company. they're just in different parts of the frequency spectrum. The characteristics of the transmission line dic
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Modern DSL equipment can get ranges of 3-4 miles from the CO on good wiring. Speeds taper off, of course, but a small increase in distance equates to a substantial increase in coverage.
The main problem is that DSLAM tech was pushed until recently so that existing urban COs could get 100% coverage, and now the financial incentive for improvement has vanished. Only rural COs need more than ~3 miles, and the return on R&D costs is thus limited (and deployment rates will be lower since urban COs won't benef
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DSL does not have a 56K limit, but trades higher frequencies and wider bandwidth for
a) much shorter runs from the central office
b) polluting the other copper pairs near the DSL pair, rendering those pairs useless for DSL.
VOIP voice is a fair bit less than 56kbps in many cases.
Dave
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>>>If fact it does not take 56kbs to transmit analogue voice but something closer to 28k will get reasonable quality
You can get voice quality as low as 8 kbit/s using a cellphone voice codec
Or if you're looking for music-quality reproduction then AAC+SBR will get you as low as 16k. Try it - http://classic.shoutcast.com/sbin/shoutcast-playlist.pls?rn=220024&file=filename.pls [shoutcast.com] or- http://classic.shoutcast.com/sbin/shoutcast-playlist.pls?rn=327466&file=filename.pls [shoutcast.com] Or- http://classic.shoutca [shoutcast.com]
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Analog modems maxed out at 33.6 Kbps. 56K moved to digital.
Acceptable voice quality can be achieved with as little as about 8Kbps, something that almost any dialup connection should be able to achieve. The problem is more in latency...
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The only way that broadband is ever going to reach the boonies in any reasonable quantity(at a cost that will make it relevant to people without impressively deep pockets) is either a near-magical wireless link technology or a mess of subsidies and fees on everybody else(as occurred during the prior rural electrification project, and telephone Universal Service stuff).
Rural areas are, on average, substantially "redder" politically than are urban areas.
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>>>I suspect there are some parts of the country which just are not serviceable without some type of large footprint (cheap) wireless solution.
I disagree. They could just use the existing phone lines to carry DSL to rural homes. At 1000 kbit/s DSL can extend 5 miles away from the central office. More distant homes could use a combination Fiber-to-Neighborhood DSLAM to provide the connection to various clusters of homes.
And as for the USF, I'd support the idea so long as it had a 10-year-sunset.
The nice thing about POTS... (Score:5, Insightful)
...is that the user terminal (the phone) is totally passive - no power needed, it's a totally dumb terminal, and very robust (at least, if it's a Western Electric product!). The POTS system is the result of some careful design and decades of improvements to increase reliability. That's not to say that there aren't benefits to be had from VOIP, just that we should think carefully before deciding that everyone will be converted to VOIP.
Disclaimer: In addition to my nifty 2.4G multiple handset cordless phones with built-in caller ID and voicemail, I have two POTS phones which work fine when the power goes out.
Re:The nice thing about POTS... (Score:5, Insightful)
POTS is a mature, robust technology that provides remarkably clear and reliable voice service throughout the country (nearly the globe) at an affordable cost.
Of course we're going to replace it.
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That's just like analog television. It too provided reliable service all across the country. I was able to get ~25 different stations in my location. "Of course we're going to replace it."
And we did. The new digital television only gives me 4 sometimes 5 channels. I can get more, but I have to risk my life crawling onto the roof to install a giant-sized antenna that cost $200+
In many mountainous areas of the country, DTV might as well not exist, because it can't "bend" around the hills like analog cou
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Full Disclosure: I work for a small POTS provider.
In my city, Mesquite, Nevada, there are two telecom providers. The traditional phone company that has operated here for over 100 years, and the new VOIP provider. One works even when the power goes out; one has a working E-911 system; and one allows you to get telephone service without requiring other bundled services.
Its amazing what a little bit of copper wire can do.
POTS is Powered! (Score:5, Insightful)
POTS works over low voltage DC. As I recall, it's somewhere in the vicinity of 48 volts, but don't quote me on that. It's entirely feasible to have a cheap, dedicated VOIP chip that runs on 48 volts and draws perhaps 50 to 100 miliamps of current - well within the normal range of today's POTS power draw.
VOIP doesn't have to be VOInternet. They coul just as easily have a dedicated IP network for telephony, then run something like PPPOÈ or VPN to gateway to the public Internet and do away with separate SL MODEMs.
You'd still probably need a long distance plan, even though the point of one is technically idiotic.
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My cell phone always works when the electricity goes out...
...provided that the cell phone towers near you are still powered. Most of them don't have their very own generator to keep them going after the UPS battery is dead and the power company's people are still 2 days away from getting service restored in that area because some severe weather event took out several counties worth of transmission lines and transformers.
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Hehe that's always one thing that's mystified me about the US, and something I didn't actually realise until quite a few months of living there. That you purchase a long distance service separately from a local phone service.
A totally alien concept to most of the world where if you buy a phone service from a company, you can pick up the receiver and dial any other phone on Earth.
It initially confused the hell out of me when I visited a friend's place and he couldn't call someone who lived 50 miles away beca
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I remember running into that in college and being totally pissed at the phone company (Qwest). For the next few years, Qwest gave me tons more reasons to
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no power need be supplied at the user end, but, as you know if anyone's dialed your number while you were working on the wires, there's plenty of juice (~90V ring voltage) there to make you say Ouch!!!.
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As some other posters have mentioned, I suspect what the FCC has in mind, at least initially, is only to begin to replace the 'backend' infrastructure connecting phone companies together. I don't think users will see a change to the "last mile" for a long, long time. As you said, it's simple, robust, and the equipment that end-users have to buy is cheap (most phones cost less than $150, some as cheap as like $10). I expect that what we'll see (and I believe most phone cos, basically already do this) is tha
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Re:Dial-up is all there is some places... (Score:4, Interesting)
Paragraph 1 of the attached PDF:
In the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (“Recovery Act”), Congress directed
the Commission to create a national broadband plan by February 17, 2010, that seeks to “ensure that all
people of the United States have access to broadband capability and establish[es] benchmarks for
meeting that goal.”1 Among other things, the Commission is to provide “an analysis of the most effective
and efficient mechanism for ensuring broadband access by all people of the United States”2 and “a
detailed strategy for achieving affordability of such service and maximum utilization of broadband
infrastructure and service by the public.”
In other words, they are looking to take your "no broadband available" location and make it a "broadband available" location. At the same time, they are looking to make the transition as cost-effective as possible so they will run whatever wires it takes to give you broadband but at the same time they are looking to eliminate duplicate services (running a nationwide-to-every-American PSTN network *AND* a nationwide-to-every-American Broadband Internet connection). They may even be able to use your existing copper to give you a good Internet connection.
Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, any conversion of your actual home telephone to VoIP would occur (if it ever did at all) well AFTER you had sufficient high-speed Internet to support it. The FCC isn't going to convert everyone to VoIP today, disconnect massive numbers of remote customers who lack broadband, then figure out how to connect to all the outlying areas later.
In fact, I imagine a lot of what they are going to do is sponsor/mandate DSL implementations, including some sort of repeater technology to break the "local loop distance" barrier and give every American household that has a POTS phone line today access to DSL tomorrow.
There's a very good chance your existing telco will still be allowed to use the voice portion of your copper to send you POTS telephone service just like you are used to today, though many of them will probably want to become pure-play Internet/DSL providers and give you a VoIP box for your phone (but most will probably make that an Analog adapter so you can still use your existing phone) - that way they can use the entire available frequency band on your copper wires to give you the best Internet speed possible, rather than having to have data in one set of frequencies and voice in another. It also greatly simplifies the gear they have to maintain.
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>>>I imagine a lot of what they are going to do is sponsor/mandate DSL implementations, including some sort of repeater technology to break the "local loop distance" barrier and give every American household that has a POTS phone line today access to DSL tomorrow.
>>>
Agree 100%. Or as one colleague told me: Run fiber to the DSLAM, and then use the existing phone lines to provide DSL to that neighborhood. That's a very cheap upgrade
Re:Dial-up is all there is some places... (Score:5, Informative)
I think a lot of people have missed the point on this. As I read it, the proposal is to replace the core infrastructure with VoIP based technology - ie. the circuits between exchanges. Existing POTS lines will still be used back to users to terminate calls. This is already in progress in the UK - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_21CN [wikipedia.org].
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<quote>
For example, one line of questioning that a Notice of Inquiry may pursue is how to continue ensuring appropriate protections for and assistance to people with disabilities in the transition to an IP-based communications world.
</quote>
That seems to imply to me that they're intended to have VoIP end-to-end, and not some half-baked backoffice based packed switched network (which in reality, we already have).
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Don't hold your breath - they may reclaim the copper and force you to get a mobile phone.
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Don't be silly. Mobile phones are great, but they'll never replace having physical lines to the home. Why? Because however much spectrum there is over-the-air, you can multiply that by orders of magnitude by simply laying lots of lines which each get their own 'private instance' of the spectrum. Massive parallelism. If *everyone* got rid of the cable/dsl/dialup Internet today, and everyone tried to use mobile broadband for their web browsing, playing WoW, watching videos from netflix, hulu, amazon, youtube,
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Come on Google, Give us wi-fi Now! (Score:3, Funny)
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Re:Come on Google, Give us wi-fi Now! (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed--- as a result, even the poster children of truck shipping, UPS/FedEx, have moved much of their cross-country shipping to rail. If you order something FedEx to Texas from the Northeast, for example, chances are it'll make a stop in Hutchins, Texas [uprr.com].
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just like sending data by wire is WAY more efficient than doing it by air.
it still doesn't mean its more convenient.
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Freight rail is still in use, and is a hell of a lot more efficient than trucking. And if it weren't for the boondoggle called the Interstate system, we'd still be shipping most freight by rail.
Re:Come on Google, Give us wi-fi Now! (Score:4, Insightful)
Google would be well-served by implementing WiFi now, and I think it would be fun if they did it in the same sort of participatory manner that they do everything else - they ship you a cheap or free GoogleRepeater, you put an antenna on your rooftop, and in certain areas Google pays for an Internet connection that they can connect to the GoogleRepeaterGrid. The network spreads as people are willing to install and run GoogleRepeaters, and remains fast based on them adding fiber connections at strategic points along the GoogleRepeaterGrid.
If they can find a channel, the long-haul connection between GoogleRepeaters could be handled on a longer-distance higher-bandwidth frequency or range of frequencies, and the local repeaters could output standard WiFi. But they wouldn't have to pay to put up towers, because there are a good number of people who would be more than happy to install the repeater gear at our houses and help spread the signal. Google? Are you listening? You can ship it to me now. I've got a primo spot on my rooftop antenna tower with your name on it.
As to the rail thing, it's still used for a lot of transportation of goods. It's amazingly efficient compared to any other way of moving product (except maybe floating it downstream on barges, but rail doesn't have to worry about river flow directions). You might be surprised at how much of the stuff you use every day was hauled at least part of the way by rail. It's more efficient than barging it, and almost ten times more efficient than hauling by the next-most-efficient method that's not dependent on current (trucks).
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Now if we could add an "e" between your "N" and "W" :)
There was a company here in NEW England (US) that tried a WiFi grid supported by scattered landline connections, but they tried to do the repeating through 802.11b (11mbps). I actually talked to them about getting my mother's house set up as a repeater (it would have been a long haul, but she's at a good altitude and had line-of-sight to their nearest station ~20 miles away, and it would have opened up new markets for them).
They expressed some interest
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Re:How unfortunate... (Score:5, Informative)
You can tap a POTS line with a couple of alligator clips and a speaker, and almost no standard telephones have even the most primitive encryption or obfuscation support, much less anything standardized.
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Please do not confuse provider based VoIP services as a replacement for POTS with VOInternet services. These are seperate things that happen to use the same call letters. It is entirely possible for a local phone company (not an ISP) to offer VoIP services direct to a compatible SIP device. This can be on a dedicated connection or chanel from internet exactly the same way a cable company can seperate analog, digital, and internet traffic on the same cable line.
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POTS is already VOIP. You're just not aware of it. Ever make a long distance call? Guess what, it's transmitted via IP packets along the whole way except for the two endpoints (your phone line and the other parties line).
Now, those packets aren't traveling on the public internet, but the whole backbone infrastructure went to IP years ago.
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"To assume makes an Ass out of U..."
Re:How unfortunate... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do NOT confuse Voice over internet with Voice over IP. They are not necessarily the same.
Your existing POTS lines today ARE running VOIP under the covers. The last mile is all that's really still a traditional POTS service in most cities. Once the calls hit central hubs, most of it is packetized traffic.
Your home VoIP service likely sucks because either your internet connection is spotty, you're too far from reasonable servers, your VoIP modem is not properly installed and QoS (likely because it;s begind a router in your home instead of being directly connected to your modem), your modem is old and doesn't properly recognize and prioritize VoIP traffic, your ISP is purposefully degrading your ViOP service, or your VoIP provider (Vonage likely) is using a poor protocol and providing poor service quality themselves.
I've been installing VoIP systems since 2001. MAJOR firms use tens of throusands of VoIP lines between offices worldwide with far superior call quality, routing capabilities, and redundancy, and for less money, than using PRIs and POTS lines.
Having your local telcom switch to VOIP as a core solution has NOTHING TO DO with the VOIP service you are used to over the internet ala Centrex style.
Bear in mind where we're at on the timeline (Score:3, Insightful)
Accepting lower quality (Score:3, Insightful)
VoIP, while an interesting and disruptive technology, is not quite ready for ALL voice applications. Some thoughts;
It is frequently easy to tell when you are speaking to someone using VoIP. Clipped high and low tones, often choppy like a bad cell call. Most businesses will not want their customers having that experience talking to them. Residential is fine - those customers are just looking for cheap, cheap, cheap. Many businesses are concerned with appearances, and a bad call experience can sour a sale in a competitive marketplace.
Many (most?) alarm companies cannot successfully run alarms (fire, elevator, burglar) over VoIP lines. Not sure if it's latency, compression or what, but I have heard this complaint MANY times from various security (alarm) company people. In some states, doing so is actually against the law.
911 routinng - have all the 911 PSAP routing issues been resolved with VoIP? This is a biggie that most people switching to VoIP don't consider.
Your Internet connection goes down, your voice is gone. One thing you can say about the PSTN is that it is pretty dependable. In all my years (I have some gray hair) it has been rare that I have trouble with a POTS line.
VoIP has its uses - I'm not denying that. But the landline network will not disappear overnight, this year, or even this decade.
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Many (most?) alarm companies cannot successfully run alarms (fire, elevator, burglar) over VoIP lines. Not sure if it's latency, compression or what, but I have heard this complaint MANY times from various security (alarm) company people. In some states, doing so is actually against the law.
That's because most alarm boxes use a modem internally to relay the information to the central monitoring station....and modems don't exactly work well over VOIP. All they need to do is switch to IP-based reporting and it's problem solved...
I'm No ure VO p is Rea y (Score:5, Funny)
My compa y has VOIP an it see t have pro le wit cu out.
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Actually, I think this could be a problem for VOIP. With POTS, you have the line to your house and the phone. Very few places for the consumer to screw it up.
For the two companies I have been in that had VOIP (including the current one) the VOIP relies on locally installed servers and were constantly needing tweaks by the provider. Often, they needed us go to the server room and reboot their server.
So VOIP is great, with great features, etc. But not everyone has the resources of a large call center to dial
Network neutrality (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder if their providers will apply the true "network neutrality" principles to whatever sip trunks they have serving them, or will the fcc traffic get priority, since they are the fcc and everything?
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FCC traffic getting priority would seem to be standards compliant because it would qualify as "Internetwork Control" which is the same level that BGP runs at.
Which is really how it should be. If you want to use qos and traffic management, follow the damn rfc.
ONLY if they set stricter ISP service standards! (Score:3, Insightful)
Right now, when internet goes down, even in corporate settings, it can take up to a freakin WEEK to get it back.. and that's just in every-day non-disaster type situations.
If the phone service goes out (that's a BIG if, i've only seen it happen 3 times in my entire life) it's never down for more than 3 hours.
Until they bring internet up to this level of reliability, I don't want to see it behind the one device in my whole house which is capable of summoning paramedics.
Bureaucracy forever (Score:2)
This move ensures the FCC keeps itself well-funded despite the technology moving well beyond the bureaucracy's purpose. VoIP was desirable in part because it was free of FCC oversight/abuse; threatened with being marginalized into oblivion (at least regarding phone service), the FCC now has a plan to assert control over such growing liberties.
Kinda like the "rural electrification project" which, despite having succeeded in its goal and thus eliminated its purpose for existence, now receives greater funding
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One of the purposes of government is to push businesses to make improvements that may be against their interest.
Take the E911/GPS requirement on cell phones. Providers weren't going to do that on their own. It cost money, it didn't provide new revenue. It may be a feature, but it probably wouldn't get people to switch companies. Left up to their own devices, it may not have been available for years and years more without government intervention.
This is the same thing. The telephone network is old. It's al
VOIP is a bad term to use here (Score:2)
This isn't about getting rid of your phone and giving you a software phone, it's about ripping out the core of the phone network and it's fundamentally circuit switched systems, and replacing them with IP based packet switched systems.
You'll still be able to plug a plain old telephone into the socket and make a call.
This is the same idea as British Telecom's current 21st Century Network project [btplc.com]. When your line terminates at the exchange, it no longer connects to a circuit switched system, but to a packet s
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Gah, apostrofail.
That should be "and its fundamentally circuit switched systems"
Wonder what bit rate? (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder what bit rate we can push through the copper at most houses in rural America? My father-in-law's old house used to get very bad static on the line when it rained, but voice was still audible. Would this VOIP be capable of service, or does that house require new wiring? Anything requiring a lot of people to change the wires in their walls is going to face some serious problems. I bet new hardware in the field could get 64kbit or maybe 128kbit digital without much problem. If you're not worried about a computer talking on the line at the same time, that is way more than sufficient. Since the FCC solicitation seems to suggest they're using this as a way to force wider broadband deployment, 256kbit might be the minimum for a connection intended to share with a computer, although I'd hesitate to call that "broadband".
I bet we could help with the reliability of VOIP by putting cheap NiMH batteries in each VOIP device (one per house, at the pedestal? or each device needs its own?). Enough capacity to last a few hours on standby and maybe 15 or 20 minutes of talk time would cover emergencies.
I think it would be very interesting to be on a technical committee to write a new standard to cover bidirectional communication on low quality twisted pair. There would be interesting coupling challenges with using one wire for send and the other for receive, but using a current sense methodology on a differential signal has its own ugliness too. It would be cheating to take turns every 10-100ms using a training sequence, but there would be power and signal benefits to weigh against the increase in latency and cut in available bandwidth (and if each device gets its own CODEC, having more than 3 people on the phone may have ludicrous latencies).
What needs transitioning first (Score:2)
Assuming that this is not VoIP to the home, but rather everything between the last miles, there's still some transitioning to be done. Mainly anything that is data over the phone, e.g. fax machines, alarm systems, and dial up networking. This requires some physical and procedural upgrades.
There are far too many legal and medical industries that won't accept a scan/pdf over email and insist on a fax for some simple forms. Heck, even Ameritrade asked me to fax in a form or to mail it in, you'd think they c
WTF? (Score:2)
VoIP is old news (Score:2)
People act as if this were something new. The long distance carriers have been using VoIP technology since the mid 90s. Almost all LD calls over the last 5-8 years use IP at some point. However, I'm pretty confident that POTS will outlive me and I'm 31.
Here's my suggestion, FCC (Score:2)
Whence Common Carrier? (Score:2)
Data transmission is not subject to common carrier, and it is looking like even if something called "net neutrality" does go through, it will have lots of fun lawyerisms in it like "reasonable". If we replace POTS with VOIP, are we going to carry common carrier over, or will the ISPs and backbones be allowed to "reasonably" manage your telephone calls?
IMO, bring common carrier over to data networks. I like it because it uses a natural stick: Want to engage in biased gatekeeping? Fine, but you are liable for
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The next step will not be VoIP over wires, but rather it will be some sort of wireless radio communication mechanism.
Yes, I can just imagine it now...some sort of wireless communication...what could it possibly be? Hold on a sec, I'm getting a text, I'll be right back with you. :p
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because the current system certainly doesn't require energy to run or battery backups at the switching stations...
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The current system doesn't require that a home have power --- a VOIP installation needs power there at the home ---granted a backup battery is a standard part of the installation (at least for Verizon's) but I don't believe that having a home's 911 service require a good and charged battery there in the home is appropriate for public safety.
William
Re:So we don't anticipate any blackouts, ever? (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't specify that the IP based service has to start in home. As far as I can tell, it could be a standard RJ11/single-twisted pair to the base station where it then gets routed via IP.
A home user wouldn't notice the difference.
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As far as the power issues go, that could be handled one of two ways, in t
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Yep - we did this (at the backbone level only) in Australia close to a decade ago now. The Australian phone network is now 100% IP based, with the last mile being the same old POTS as always. As you said - nothing changes from a customer perspective at all. It just makes network maintenance simpler and more flexible from the telephone companies' perspective.
However is that actually what TFA is talking about here? The US proposal seems to be a bit more advanced than this, and includes some form of delivery o
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Most of Maine suffered a massive ice storm [mainetoday.com] in 1998. I was without power in Souther Maine for 11 days. My sister in Coastal Maine was without power for 17 days.
Verizon succeded in maintaining telephone service wherever there were wires up by swapping batteries in the SLCs and recharging them as needed.I wrote about this here [slashdot.org].
Even a VOIP system requires wiring. Battery *could* be provided, since PoE is used successfully, but frankly the telephone company is probably glad to get rid of battery. Hey, if yo
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HIPPA only requires that the PII be properly secured. Enforce S/MIME, PGP or similar and you're good to go. Not as easy as FAX, but if it's properly done it's not bad and it's MUCH more secure. An unauthorized user can walk away with a printed FAX, not so with an encrypted email. And you can guarantee that data is from who it claims to be from via the encryption keys. FAX is easy to spoof. The biggest use case I can see for them still that isn't really handled well is signatures. There are digital sigs, but
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Here's an idea. Why not selling some pure-IP (ethernet) credit card machines? I can see an argument for security (not running credit card transaction data over the public Internet, even encrypted, there is a chance that someone might break the encryption). I suppose that would be a good reason. Although, if this FCC plan goes through, it sounds like even the 'dialup' devices will still be having their data routed over the Internet. Hmmm.
I wonder if Telcos could setup seperate 'high security' networks for di