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VoIP, WiFi and the Future of Traditional Telecom
PetiePooo writes "Those of us in the telecom industry have been watching it wither and die in the past few years. Here's why. The Register has an article about the future of mobile communications using VoIP on WiFi. From the article: "... voice over IP would gradually come to be a prime driver of mobile Internet." VoIP has been considered by many for a while now to be the future of traditional telephony. Combining VoIP and WiFi makes a compelling argument for the convergence of voice and data services over a single platform. Here's a previous slashdot discussion on industry's efforts to make this happen."
You've obviously never been on call, those "pockets of dead space" were always a savior when you were doing something much cooler than responding to the helpdesk. ;-)
I work in the telecoms industry as a vendor supplying equipment to fixed line and mobile operators. As there are increasingly more and more players in this once-monopolized industry, there comes a great need for reduced costs, especially in the core and switching networks.
The number of subscribers increases everyday, and how would the telecom operators cope with the increasing need for additional bandwidth without laying more cables (which of course, increases cost)? By using existing IP network, of course!
The dot-com internet slump has left most of the urbanised areas on the planet over-wired, and underutilized. By deploying VOIP in their switching and access networks, fixed-network operators can now cater for more subscribers, and at the same time, stay competitive with lower prices.
Also, operators can then focus on their business (customer service, billing, operations) without worrying about network expansion, deployment and maintenance of the physical medium, since it's already taken care of by the IP network provider.
One further advantage that VOIP has over conventional switched networks is that IP networks can include a Quality of Service (QOS) package for each subscriber. This means that by subscribing to different QOS packages, subscribers can now have a choice between a low-cost, low (but bearable) voice quality; and high cost and quality alternatives.
VOIP could be the telecom's way into the future. I personally do not see the end of this industry so soon, as there are still lots of terrain to cover. The world is wider than we think!