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AT&T Migrating Phone Network to IP
prostoalex writes "Following the lead of Sprint and Telus, who are moving their telephone networks to IP, AT&T will spend $3 billion to migrate to an IP-based network. By the end of 2005 about 270 legacy systems will be retired." The article also notes how the current ratio of packet traffic to voice is already 8:1.
As this article states, the bandwidth required for VoIP can be huge. I would seriously hope to see some more advanced algorithms or better yet, more bandwidth installed, before these systems become more heavily adopted.
You couldn't even lay the fiber for 250 million.
He didn't say they could. He said they were buying dark fiber - the billions of dollars to lay the fiber had already been spent by someone else, but it wasn't being used, so they would buy it from them cheaply.
I'm not disagreeing that it's BS; I don't know.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Depends on which phone companies you're talking about. The incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) make their money by charging customers outrageous monthly fees, and by charging long distance companies for terminating their calls at the local subscriber's telephone. They hate VOIP.
Carriers like AT&T, which sell primarily long distance, like VOIP since it saves them money, and could eventually allow them to bypass the ILECs entirely, since it turns voice calls into another internet data stream. They like VOIP.
Amen, bro. That was my first thought as well.
On the other hand, if other comments are correct and VoIP takes in fact HIGHER bandwidth than the 64Kbps POTS, things aren't that bad after all. Of course it sounds funny - with potential compression of about 8-10Kbps, how come it takes higher bandwidth overall? Apparently, some protocol overhead. AT least this is what Tolly group claims, and I know Tolly quite well, their tests and conclusions are normally well founded.
So the best case scenario - nothing will happen.We still connect our PCs to the analog voice line, with V92 protocol and get somewhere between 40 to 50Kbps throughput.
The worst case scenario is that we'll get nothing, but then hopefully low-speed ADSL type connection will come down say to $15 a month, so it shouldn't be such a big problem.
Yes. RBOCs generally know how to create systems that still work after multiple failures.
You need to be worried about the new CLECs. Some of their connections into RBOCs are not even redundant - can you say outage?
It should be transparent to you. There should still be a 64 kbps full-duplex pipe between the end-points of the connection. The difference is how the bits get transported.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
VOIP is just another protocol. Most people seem to not realize that by the time their phoneline reaches the edge of their neighborhood, it has become a digital signal. The transition to VOIP is just natural progression. It allows more flexability, but will still require routers and switchtes to operate. Through these switches and routers is how the phone companies will keep track of calls. VOIP does NOT mean an end to phone numbers, providers, etc... Remember that most of the internet is carried by the ILEC networks on the same loops used to carry voice, just reonfigured slightly to allow pure data traffic. VOIP providers merely use these loops in the data configuration with routers that convert the analog voice signals to packets closer to the customer end than normal voice lines. VOIP merely abstracts the traffic type from the physical layer more than current SS7 and other protocols. VOIP is not simply PC-PC calls placed by IP address. VOIP is only a different protocol, central switches are still used to route calls and keep track of things, they just run more efficently (ie: 1 VOIP switch about the size of a 10k cisco can handle the entire call volume for a decent sized city (or 2) where currently several switches are required by the ILECs). Per-minute rates and such will still be acounted for. Phone providers will switch to VOIP mainly due to the relative simplicity and flexability of its stucture. VOIP is NOT what alot of people percieve, it is simply a new method of routing voice traffic that does not eliminate the need for routers/switches/etc...
TM
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CNET has posted a Sept 11 newsmakers interview with Kazaa's Janus Friis promoting his P2P telephony app, Skype: Why VoIP is music to Kazaa's ear. The download (for Windows 2000 and XP only) can be found here: Skype beta.
The University of Michigan is deploying a VoIP system... all the (public) details are here. I'm not sure if it's as technically specific as you'd like but it gives a good overview of what they're doing.