Slashdot Mirror
VoIP + 802.11 = Bad News For Phone Companies
r.future writes " Netstumbler, a site that has downloads for software used by wardrivers, points to an article on Red Herring that talks about combining voice over IP and 802.11 wireless technology. The article states "Individually, VoIP and 802.11 are hot technologies with promising futures. Now they are gaining attention for their potential as a combined force. Convergence, or the melding of voice calls over an IP network together with wireless 802.11 technologies, is becoming increasingly popular. VoIP reduces the need for local carrier origination and termination." both Netstumbler, and the Red Harring article point to the University of Arkansas as a example of an institution that has combined the two technologies and was able to "circumvented its local carrier and reduced monthly service fees from $530,000 to a mere $6,000 by using voice over IP technology ""
Why don't you want to create more fine US jobs in such great industry as phone company customer service?
first post!!
I have experienced no problems with it since I had VoIP installed by my ISP. Long distance calls to the US are essentially free, as are calls to Germany, Japan, and really anywhere except for Africa. I haven't tried calling NZ yet, but I imagine that it's pretty much the same as calling any other place in Oceania.
Hopefully a security protocol could be used to make wireless phone communication more secure. Some kind of tweaked up VPN could be used or something.
-Seriv
A few companies might be selling VoIP WiFi "cellphones" in a few years. Interesting idea. But will we ever have a standard network? I only see it becoming like the current cellphone network if only a few companies dominate.
I look forward to the day when telephone
service as we know it today is completely gone,
replaced by wireless IP technology.
Instead of a phone, you carry a palm-pc
type device that might happen to look a lot
like the cell-phones of today. Instead of
having phone service, you have internet service.
The information superhighway is here at last!
Hamsters are at least as feathery as penguins. HamLix
AT&T just announced that it was going all VoIP not too far back. If our voice traffic is going to save them money, and they're still gonna charge me the same...then fuck that. I'll just save myself money and go VoIP.
Can I get an eye poke?
Dog House Forum
So with this technology you're saying we could have phones that are...cordless? Stop the presses! That's amazing! They'll take over the phone companies' markets for sure with revolutionary ideas like this.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
circumvented its local carrier and reduced monthly service fees from $530,000 to a mere $6,000 by using voice over IP technology
Great. Did they do it with Windows Server 2003? 'Cause I was under the impression that the only way to save 'millions of dollars' on IT these days was to fire your staff and oursource everything to overpriced monopolies.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I think you mean:
Don't worry about it. Common mistake for beginning programmers.
It's come to the point where the First Post trolls are more interesting than anything else posted on Slashdot.
We occasionally see annecdotal evidence that 802.11 can successfully carry voice traffic. These events are highly situational and generally only happen in rural areas where a single player controls all the high ground. If you're writing a business plan based on transiting voice on a point to point unlicensed band link you're very brave, if you're planning on doing it point to multipoint you need one of those jackets that helps you hug yourself. I've deployed 802.11b, Alvarion Breeze Access II, and various UNI band access products in a five county area that contains the 53rd largest metro area in the US. Note that I said "I have" - my BP had been 110/70 my whole life but in the last ninety days before I quit that and got a job that paid it peaked at 148/98. Even if you avoid the stock fraud dirtbags, the outright equipment theft dirtbags, the theft by deception dirtbags, and the cheesy mafioso dirtbags with grandfathered licenses in the ISM band, you're still facing the simple fact that any dork with $500 and a building on top of a hill can start a wireless play, crap all over the spectrum, and there simply isn't any recourse. Voice belongs on licensed spectrum and it always will. The *only* exception to this is sideband T1 usage on high quality point to point links - think Proxim Tsunamis at $14k a pair and you're on the right track.
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
Then you'll get several hundred calls per day asking if you want to enlarge or reduce certain body parts.
Vocera, a Cupertino, California-based startup, has developed a voice-activated Star Trek-like mobile device.
Beam us up Scottie....
no shit....nobody likes posting boring-ass stories like taco
For those regarded as warriors, when engaged in combat, the vanquishing of thine enemy can be the warrior's only concern.
Suppress all human emotion and compassion, kill whoever stands in thy way, even if that be Lord God, or Buddha himself.
This truth lies at the heart of the art of combat.
By using its existing TCP/IP networks and spending $4 million for a Cisco Call Manager, the university circumvented its local carrier and reduced monthly service fees from $530,000 to a mere $6,000.
GREAT IDEA! They spent $4,000,000 to save 500,000.
Of course, this is Arkansas we're talking about. They aren't much good with the number-learnin'.
(and there's no mention of other facility/staff expenses, either, so who knows how much money this really "saves")
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
All these reports on higher speed processors and 3D laptops are nice and the SCO reports sometimes amuzing but this is great. Both using new technology and cutting big company profits out of consumer bills is never bad news to me. I would personally like to see more of this possitive usage of technologies that directly benifits me. Who wouldn't?
-Tim Louden
I dont see cell phones that are only 802.11 going anywhere anytime soon, but I do see dual mode phones taking the market. Making a call via 802.11 when available and using the normal cell phone network when 802.11 is too busy or unreliable.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Assuming the service fees would remain the same, the initial investment will pay for itself then it will start actually saving money.
Many of the people I've spoken to in the area of 802.11, wireless, and telecommunications have indicated this for awhile.
In fact, I spoke with a guy earlier in the year about a wireless internet access product his company provided. When he revealed the device is currently the size of a pack of cigaretes, and will be getting smaller, while providing megabits of bandwidth, I made a comment about putting VoIP into it and turning it into a phone. At that point he shut up and said something to the effect of, yes, well, thats a distinct possibility.
I got the impression that was exactly where they are going.
The idea behind VoIP on 802.11 style networks is if you have a big enough grid, you can do away with cellphones for that area.
There is still the problem of routing calls outside the "cloud" of coverage. Obviously each company would need its own internal phone solution still, but if the "cloud" gets big enough, you'll find that companies start offering 802.11+VoIP to teleco phone gateways.
I find it nice in the sense that the PRS radio system could replaced in these 802.11 hotspot areas. By making a small 802.11 phone, you could provide "free" wireless calls inside a 802.11 "cloud".
I say free, because bandwidth will ALWAYS be the bain of a wireless users existance, until solutions such as UWB (Ultra-Wide-Band (check it out, very exciting technology)) become a reality, wireless will always be slower than wired.
As geeks, unless we work for someone big like IBM, Bandwidth is always a precious resource. You can never have too much. Wireless networks never have enough. Try fitting 20 VoIP calls down a 802.11b wireless network and see how it runs.
I'm not saying it won't work, in fact, I'm saying the oppisite, it will. It will just require some more technology, and a bit more planning than most people realize.
On another slightly related note: Anyone know where I can buy a 802.11b frequency jammer?
I use to have a funny sig, but slash cut it off, and I forgot what the punchline was.
SexOverIP! Act now and soon you too will have hundreds of 'Girls Gone Wild' throwing <strike>things</strike> themselves at you. Girls dig geeks! Then you can use your new VoIP for SoIP. You can also fight any e-VD with Norton Antivirus. Act now protocols are limited.
MoFscker
After 10 months, this will have paid for itself. Then the true savings kick in.
This is like you bashing people who buy a house. After all, why pay $120K for a house, when you can just rent for $400 a month.
"...the University of Arkansas as a example of an institution that has combined the two technologies and was able to circumvent its local carrier and reduced monthly service fees from $530,000 to a mere $6,000 by using voice over IP technology"
All of which savings were transferred to the football team. I mean, this is the South we're talking about.
My boss tried to advocate this for our new building. The next morning the halfcompetents who run our IT department had the network go down for a couple of hours. Not to mention the fact that most of the site was paralyzed for 3 days by the last round of worms.
Sorry, you've just bundled all my communication over a single VERY FAILURE-PRONE medium. I'm willing to pay for 5 or 6 9s of uptime rather than cruise by on the cheap. If we had VOIP we couldn't even get in touch with our department tech (savvy and on top of things) when we got DoS'd.
from Arkansas. That's $524,000/month, jackass. More than $6.3M/year. They just saved a ton.
This has been a big topic on the Dartmouth campus lately, with VoIP being set up campus-wide. There are lots of people who will just use it with their laptops, but several profs already have a nifty little device from Vocera which hangs around the neck on a lanyard and is mostly voice-driven. (The comparisons to a Star Trek communicator in the article are actually pretty apt, except for the size) Their CEO was just here a couple days ago giving a lecture on the device. Very cool stuff, though most of the software is necessarily server-side, and seems to cost a hefty amount.
It's partly being touted as an alternative to cell phones (reception sucks up here) but 802.11 reception is too limited to make it worthwhile for those of us who live off-campus. Still, I'll be watching carefully to see how it goes.
We have experimented with voip and just a few nodes. I can see that it has the potential to save a HUGE chunk out of our current telecom budget, but will require upgrades in the form of new desktop computers, new desktop OS, new servers with new licenses to support the new desktops.... It will save $500,000 but will cost us $1,000,000 easy. I know it's the right decision for the long run, but the investors are not willing to give up the cash.
Why pay USF to incumbent carriers to string more monopoly copper pair (even at a discount to low-income, educational/library and rural users) when new upstarts can deliver equivalent tech for even cheaper than that to everyone?
The one thing telecos can deliver on is reliability (big-ass banks of batteries power COs during outages) but even that can be shifted to local co-ops who can repackage service from wireless/voip carriers along with local copper pair or self-contained boxes with a big battery, wireless router, and VOIP to POTS converter inside.
Especially since the 6 Million would be depreciated over fives years.
That means they are effectively paying about 100K a month to save 500K a month. Net savings, 400K/month. This is how their financial guys would look at it.
There's no demand for something like that, in my opinion. You'd still be paying your $40-90/mo for your service plan with your cell provider. What's the point in it trying to use 802.11 when it can? Saving minutes? Just really not worth it. Again, IMO.
I am, within a month, going to installed "multiplexed T1" system over a pair of Proxim wireless units. It will link two schools that I have jurisdiction over, and provide telephone service between them. This will save the district almost $1000 per month in T1 charges. It's not quite VOIP, but it's the same concept of voice-over-digital-data-lines.
I mean, anything that kills Kristina from Teen Girl Squad is a good thing.
Aside from that, it really is awesome. Charles County Maryland's Public Schools, where i work, is ripping out all the traditional million dollar phone systems at the schools and replacing everything with Cisco switches and IP phones. Doing so is set to save us $300,000 a year of the taxpayers' money.
You like your new Mac more than you like me, don't you, Dave? Dave? I asked...She said Yes.
This newfangled "horseless carriage" is bad news for the horse and buggy industry.
"Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
-- Ryan Stiles
$500,000 per month. Read the fine article, Charlie Brown.
You can see it coming.
A faster internet means no need for cable television any more.
Probably the reason the Cable Barons are trying Video on Demand. But it will be useless against the tide .
Haven't you been paying attention? AT&T has been farming out their customer service call centers to India.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Are there any VoIP software that lets you call from the internet to an actual phone? I've seen tons of internet to internet proprietary phones, but never one like that.
Does anyone know software like this?
Is there a reason software like this dosn't exsist?
What would need to happen to get software like this to work?
I like the concept of this unified technology, but let's face it, using Part-15 concepts just are not going to cut the mustard.
For starters, do you actually think the likes of Verizon and SBC will sit idle while the world creates virtually free mobile telephone service? I think not. They'll flood the world with free cordless telephones that, without coincidence, will be right smack-dab in the middle of the 802.11 bands. I'm thinking they'll literally give these things away with the intent of making these frequencies quite unusable.
That's the typical mindset of these corporations. If that doesn't do it, they'll flood the world with wireless access points so they can control the spectrum that way.
I'd love to see the marriage of these technologies, I just think the corporate oligopoly will break out the bag of dirty tricks to stop it dead in its tracks.
Unless, you can win favor of the FCC and make Mr. Powell good on his promises to create frequency allocations for entrepreneurs and fast moving technologies.
He just wanted to take a swipe at the stereotype of "Arkansas." In reality, the investment will have paid for itself in less than 8 months and then the savings will begin.
You must not be too good at number-lernin'
James
The phone companies already had the last mile, in future we will pay per MB tranfered and the MB cost will be equivalent of today's minute...
Kristen, you look burnt, or dead.
I go to the U of A. You should see the jumbotron in our stadium. Kinda makes you wonder why they don't throw that much money towards bettering our academic reputation....
Is slashdot dying? The server problems reported a few days ago are getting worse.
Sigh. He probably crawled into a trashcan and died from internal bleeding. Now who is going to rape an elderly woman tonight?
VOIP is great, but Call Manager sucks. It runs under Windows 2000 server. It crashes all the time. It gets the blaster worm. It is a POS.
This *IS* Slashdot, right? Invest in Avaya's media server, runs under Linux. Or Nortel's new IP call manager. Or look at Alcatel's SIP based equipment.
Avoid Cisco - well, everything. The Foundry or hell, even Dell switches are better. Faster CPU, more RAM. And the wireless gear, there are plenty of 802.1x and EAP compliant AP's. I know somebody who just bought a Cisco 804 ISDN router. $1000! For an ISDN router! WHat an overpriced joke that stuff is.
They're not going VOIP, just IP.
8 months to recover their initial investment, 1 month on costs, and 3 months to bank.
Running, housing, powering, and maintaining all their own equipment ain't free, but it sure as hell is less than $500,000 for the year.
Running would be under the service contract, which without a doubt was figured into the costs and ROI. Housing costs on university grounds? Are you joking? You could find enough housing on university grounds, in unused space, to house a server farm. Powering? A drop in the bucket when compared to half a million in monthly payments. Maintaining? Part of the contract the first few years at a minimum, included in the cost calculations and ROI. After that, a drop in the bucket compared to half a million in monthly payments...
Stop trolling. Concentrate on finding another government job after Governor Arnold terminates your sorry public service ass.
Yeah, like I want my TV and phone to get fucked every time some Microsoft worm spreads and eats up all the available bandwidth.
#!/
you'd be saving few pennies every now and then.. totally not worth it.
anyways, for the service to work on more places than your home neighbourhood you'd need some centralising (or maybe youd just connect to your home computer always? a ping and support disaster in the making) that you would end up buying a plan for -guess what?- a voip provider.
the one place these might get somewhere are portable intercoms, but for even those (in some markets, with very reliable gsm providers) companies have just started to use gsm phones for that as well.
i mean seriously though, if you have such piss poor phone companies that this wifi-voip actually sounds like a good idea.. you must have really piss poor service.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
802.11b is in the 2.4 Ghz unlicensed band, anyone and everyone can play there. Just fire up a microwave oven and watch people start losing their connections.
Based on this press release, it looks like a lot of people may be watching how this project is turning out. I'd be interested in what's motivating the city of Houston to dump $15 million into their telephone system. Are they trying to get away from paying the telcos or will residents have access to parts of this system?
:)
I'd love to see my university, UBC, take part in some of these projects. We have a massive campus, with a great wireless network that's free for the students. It'd be great to see some projects set up for additional services once the wireless network reaches full coverage.
Another interesting way the telephone companies may be combating this behavior is by offering free student-to-student calling. I believe it's AT&T doing that around here. You register your university and calls to others who're registered at the same university are free.
I sense a massive battle between the telcos and us freeloaders coming on
As a graduate student of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville (this is really about the Fayetteville campus only for now...), I have to say that so far the conversion has been seemless. I had heard about this but didn't know how far along it was, to know that it is DONE amazes me. For all intents and purposes, nothing changed...except saving $500,000 per month for the school.
Once they completely finish the 802.11 campus-wide network, this will actually be a decent campus, technology wise.
A service not software, but does the job.
You must be new here.
As a student at UA, I seriously doubt this savings will end up in the hands of the students. Probably will go towards all the destruction/construction that I can't seem to walk/ride/drive around. Fockers. The terror. Actually, what will UA do with an extra half million a month?! Pay for new housing, parking, health center, etc. Good for them. VOIP is pretty slick.
Isn't this something like wireless in local loop? I've seen WLL in action in India. It's great for developing countries like India that don't want to dig up the streets to add telephone cables.
People who do a lot of talking on their phone at work could really cut down on their minutes.
Also, it would be extremely usefull if you send a lot of data. Think about web browsing cell phones, or cell/wireless PC cards.
UPS already uses this for those tablet thingies they have -- they use cell on the road, and their warehouses all have wireless networks. Saves them a bunch of money.
It would be interesting if this ever became the norm how the goverment would implement CALEA.
30% off web hosting. Coupon code "SLASHDOT".
Is suspect if I was to run a 5W 2.4ghz TV transmitter, I'd interfere with quite a radius of 802.11b devices.
Wi-fi devices cannot be relied upon to provide mission-critical services, period.
73,
Michael
Gross. It has the smegma of the entire Third Fleet in there.
"A faster internet means no need for cable television any more."
And who's pipes will your "no need for..." be riding over?
And even if it's an alternative. i.e. Satellite, Powerline, VooDoo magic. Someone's going to get your money.
Thank you sir. That was the best laugh I had all day.
Want to trade your dime for my nickel? It's bigger!
I'm thinking there is a huge market for college kids. Get a $30/mo pay plan (or even pay-as-you-go), and assuming that the college campus is wifi-enabled you could drastically reduce the amount of time billed to the traditional phone company. Most of their time is spent on campus anyways, and it could cut down on their phone budget a lot.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
I think the cable companies are going in the right direction. Comparing the two is, IMO, a bad idea.
VoIP stands to hurt telco because the venue the telco provides (that phone line) is no longer the only one that can carry the service, or content (phone service, if you arent following along). So the other services coming into our homes and dorms or through the air can provide it much more cheaply.
Cable is still about content. If the cable companies are smart they will continue to expand their bandwidth and provide more services similar to video-on-demand. it has been said and proposed many times that video on demand could replce traditional programming. I would worry if I were blockbuster, not the cable company.
Great, so while VoIP saves people money, they can clog up the publically funded networks with their own traffic. We have enough trouble on campus with p2p slowing down the network and making it hard to get work done -- now we're meant to be happy when these stupid freephone companies get in on the act?
Meanwhile, of course, don't expect anything like 911 or the (admittedly reduced) protection from government wiretaps. If you're on VoIP, anyone who wants can listen in -- until these companies decide to put encryption in. That will be approximately never, given pressure from the DoJ and their own desire to make a buck. I've never seen such lemming-like trust in scam companies, but I guess the promise of avoiding that $15 a month landline charge really rankles.
Why not bother to ask what the impact of your latest and greatest gadget is?
This may seem like a minor thing, or an obvious thing when reading this, but for me it would be a great thing.
I've been through such problems trying to find cordless phones that don't interfere with my home 802.11b network. A cordless that ran ON 802.11b would only take up bandwidth; not interfere. And if I switched to 802.11 a or g, I'd have more bandwidth.
Think there's not much need or no market? Here's what I went through (short version):
900 Mhz phones not an option because of interference from other sources, and mainly because none of the vendors are releasing feature-full phones based on 900 Mhz. Want multi-handset with two lines? Forget it.
Some 2.4 Ghz phones completely trash 802.11b when off hook. Other models / brands will seem to cause no problem at all -- except occasionally (and regularly) your computers will loose their 802.11b connection. Even with the phone on-hook. Plus, sometimes you'll get static on the phone when there's a lot of data on the 802.11b network.
There is no standards body setting standards for or certifying compatility of 2.4 Ghz band devices. There is only one way to find out if a phone will interfere with your 802.11b network: Buy it, take it home, plug it in, use it, wait, see if anything weird happens. Took me a few days to notice the "computers drop off the network problem". Hopefully you have time to return the phone...
New 5.8 Ghz phones are no solution. Turns out they use 5.8 Ghz in one direction (base to handset, I think), but 2.4 Ghz in the other direction.
No, I'm New Here
Uniden Phones, such as this one, are 5.8 up and 5.8 down.
I can't guarentee the Panasonic 5.8 is 5.8 up and down, however, the 2.4 Panasonic I own does not interfere with my home network.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who recognizes VOIP over consumer-grade 802.11 wireless will constitute broadcasting all your phone conversations to the public, free for anyone with the right equipment near your antennas to intercept it all.
I recently went to a seminar where an engineer from a big-name-brand licensed microwave network hardware vendor demonstrated to the audience (a bunch of local govt I.T. people) just how easy it was to intercept 802.11b, bust the WEP encryption, and show the decrypted datastream within minutes using freely available open-source software.
...getting yourself a couple of hardware-encrypting ethernet bridges to hang on each end of that Proxim microwave link. Something that'll do 3DES, Blowfish, Rejindael would be sufficient. If you don't want to buy commercial products, you can roll your own with this Linux kernel ethernet bridge driver .
This is great in large institutions who have fast, but more importantly, RELIABLE connections suchas as > T1. However, try to incorporate this in homes who have DSL/Cable connections losing packets & losing connections here & there, not to mention sluggish dial-up connections, and you'll have real problems.
I can't speak for everyone, but I'd hate to miss an important phone call because my internet connection was out.
There are a number of 802.11b VoIP devices currently available on the market.
Cisco makes the 2920 but still requires Cisco call manager as a back end.
and one of the more affordibale and interesting products is the Pulver Innovations WiSIP Phone. (short for WiFi SIP).
As well as other products made by companys like Symblol
Between these and Asterisk, "The Open Source Linux PBX" (which works quite well btw) you can come up with great solutions, and some really neat applications.
Anyone who designs a communications system that is 100% dependent on 802.11 devices is crazy.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Lets create the worlds largest surveillance network. Great idea, guys. Try to figure out how to put Ritalin in school drinking water while you're at it. Leave it to the nerds to create yet another dang technolgy that infringes on personal communication privacy.
The FCC will OBVIOUSLY kill this. The telcos that paid tens of billions for their FCC licenses will complain that their rights are being infringed on etc. Also they will bring up the ol' "interference" argument. Then, rather than limit the wattage of individual transmissions etc. and scrap the cell phone licenses to free it up for the public ..the FCC will proceed to ban VOIP and 802.11b. Initially the bans will be for security purposes .. without central control the bad guys can do criminal activities etc. and then the feds will ban strong encryption too naturally.
When it happens, remember, I have predicted this.
High-lare-e-us!
I remember a few years ago, some movement to create a QoS standard for 802.11, since the collision algorithms for the AP didn't handle streams of packets very well (the likelihood of collisions goes up exponentially). Does the cisco system have some kind of QoS, so the VoIP traffic doesn't strangle the TCP connections?
I'd like to short a billion shares of Ma Bell.
Especially since the article mentioned their MONTHLY bill going from $500k to $6000.
That's cool and I salute them--I just wonder how they were spending $500,000 a month on (apparently) local service? What exactly was costing $500,000 a month? I couldn't find that in the article and it's what I was most interested in.
They must be transferring staff, too.
Got off the phone with a "rep" with an Texan accent about being soft-slammed by them, switched to biz LD service.
Had to be American: his "conversation" was peppered with all-American racial innuendo and insults and the air was thick with "I'm the expert and therefore superior to you, moron" attitude.
No Indian I've met had ever come across like that. No, Indians are more civilized, it seems.
That and SBC's emulation of NYNEX (non)service makes me want to go totally wireless...
I remember when back in the good old days I circumvented our local carrier and reduced monthly service fees from $38,000 to a mere $25 by using a then revolutionary blue-boxing technology. Needless to say, I quickly faced prosecution. Now, when circumvention itself became illegal thanks to DMCA act, I wonder how long before people start being prosecuted for using VoIP. Is this madness ever going to stop?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
what will this mean for internet speed if VoIP really catches on? wont it cause a blaster/sobig effect?
I saw this coming a while back...but phone companies here seem oblivious. When I told a friend working for the biggest phone company over here, guess what he said: 'there must be laws against that'!
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Like the one I administer, every university uses a pbx for intercampus calls. There is no charge, other than my salary and the service contract for the pbx (which is a helluva lot cheaper than voip bandwidth), for intra-campus calls since they don't leave the campus. Sounds like they either have a lot of remote campuses or they are stupid enough to give everyone their own phone line from the phone company.
netkev.com
If it's anything like the system at my school, you're looking at a phone for every dorm room, office, and possibly class room. The backend hardware for that was probably a bigger investment than what they just layed out for the new VoIP system. Then there's probably a service contract for when things break (which they are almost guaranteed to eventually) or need replacement and upgrades. A contract like that on a 20-phone PBX at a small business can be a several $K per year, so imagine how that scales to a university wide system.
Lastly, the university phone system must have had a lot of trunk lines to the local telco. The phones on campus here use a 5-digit extension for on-campus calls, but are also part of the local telco system if you add the area code and 27 to the extension. If the new system uses a different scheme, such as a single trunk number + extension for calls from off campus, that would change the cost to the telco quite a bit as well. Eliminating the need to have an entire phone exchange or 10 (first 3 digits) reserved for university numbers, and cutting down on trunk lines needed by routing other calls through the internet as direct VoIP calls would have a huge effect on the phone bills.
I don't profess to be a telecom-expert, but I figure this might explain some of the costs associated with the old phone system. If anyone has deeper knowledge of this subject, I would love to learn more.
Until someone can provide a VoIP solution that can actually be configured to work behind a NAT for a normal user, this shit will always be impossible.
I have spent _years_ looking for a good VoIP solution - but for some reason, the average videogame is more network-friendly than this major enterprise app.
I'll explain it plain and simple: I want to connect to Port X on IP Y and have a voice chat conversation.
Alternately, if I cannot directly point Port X to IP Y to computer Z, I want computer Z to register its name with a third party, and I use the name and that third party to connect to computer Z.
I don't want to have to forward 90% of the IP range to my computer. I don't want to upgrade my NAT to a "compatible" router - everyone else has to program for the hardware, yet for some reason the VoIP standards bodies thought the hardware should conform to them.
I don't want to need a 3rd party unless I'm connecting to something otherwise unreachable from the outside (anonymous user behind a NAT).
Thats it.
Why is it in every game I can say: I want to run a server, and I want it to run on ports X, Y and Z, and just tell everybody else "hey, connect to my IP on port X" I can, and they do, and we play. But, if I want a voice chat, I have to rewire the whole friggin' internet. No, I can't change what ports it runs on. No, all users involved need to leave all their ports open.
Its pretty sad when X-fucking-box-live is outdoing the entire tech-industry for usable cheap VoIP.
it follows that they recouped their original investment after 8 months and start _really_ saving.
:)
and that seems to be so obvious even Arkansas got it
The Economist magazine has often pointed out that there should be no per minute/distance charge for telephone use, and that Telcos should just charge consumers a flate rate monthly fee. E.g. most IPS are already doing. Unsurprisingly, the Telcos prefer the current system because it generates more revenue.
Now that there the technological infrastructure to provide an alternative phone system is in place, there are going to be problems for the Telcos. Their only advantage will be their existing customer base and the protective regulations already in place.
Since most people will want to make VoIP calls to people who still have a normal telephone, the battle will take place at the boundry between the phone system and the data networks.
Historically the Telcos have been monopolies in many countries, and even in our new de-regulated world, they still enjoy an enhanced legal standing that will protect their business interestes. The Telcos have extensive experience with the legal system (their lobbying got the current regulations enacted) and are not shy about litigation. Thus, the telecom companies are like to scream and shout all the way to the courts as VoIP becomes popular.
But it's not so simple. The Telcos will be facing big opposition. Companies like Cisco are husg and investing monsterous amounts on VoIP. If the challengers were merely garage start-ups, this would just be another instance new technology getting squashed by the big players. In this case, however, the challengers have a chance, and with them the end customer could benefit too.
It should be interesting. Stay tuned.
---- It won't be as bad as you fear or as good as you hope, but it will take twice as long as you plan.
Someone will make money from it, or have it suppressed!
In the UK, Blockbuster Video rental toyed with the idea of Video on Demand.
They canned the idea when during a feasibility study, they realised that over 40% of their revenue came from late fees!
Here's the corrected version:
With the rise of inexpensive voice over IP (VoIP), there are going to be big battles as the Telecommunication Companies (Telcos) attempt to defend their turf against encroachment by the data network operators and large ISPs.
Basically the current billing models for voice (Telcos) and data (ISPs) are different, but there is no technological reason why. The Economist magazine has often pointed out that there should be no per minute/distance charge for telephone use, and that Telcos should just charge consumers a flate rate monthly fee. E.g. what most IPS are already doing. Unsurprisingly, the Telcos prefer the current system because it generates more revenue.
Now that the technological infrastructure is in place to provide an alternative phone system, there are going to be problems for the Telcos. Their only advantage will be their existing customer base and protective regulations.
Since most people will want to make VoIP calls to people who still have a normal telephone, the battle will take place at the boundry between the phone system and the data networks. And these battles will be over legal and not technical issues.
Historically the Telcos have been monopolies in many countries, and even in our new de-regulated world, they still enjoy an enhanced legal standing that still protects their business interestes. The Telcos have extensive experience with the legal system (their lobbying got the current regulations enacted) and are not shy about litigation. Thus, the telecom companies are likely to scream and shout all the way to the courts as VoIP becomes popular.
But it's not so simple. The Telcos will be facing big opposition. Companies like Cisco are huge and are investing lots on VoIP. If the challengers were merely garage start-ups, this would just be another instance of new technology getting squashed by the big players. In this case, however, the challengers have a chance, and with them the end customer could benefit too.
It should be interesting. Stay tuned.
---- It won't be as bad as you fear or as good as you hope, but it will take twice as long as you plan.
Cell phones have open common standards which guarantee interoperability between manufacturers, wireles, you can use Motorola phone Ericson base station and Nokia network elements to make a call. Cell phone has structure for interoperator roaming and billing you can make a call in any country in any operators network. Cell phones have standardised encryption and authentication, allthough time is catching on to GSM encryption. Now IF wireles operators and verdors can make all these they still have to catch up the massive deployment and availability of the cellular services and penetration of actual phones.
If you deploy a 802.11 distributed network over a city for example you have VoIP and videoconferencing, Internet access at high speed ...
Wow its like Third Generation Mobile phones (UMTS), hehe and without any licence xDDDDDDDDDDD
xDDDDDDDDDDDD Billions and billions of dollars paid in Europe for licenses of UMTS xD
undergrads.
They even went the extra mile to highlight this point by closing down all sorts of small budject extra curricular programs, like the movie theator, claiming them superfluous to education while dumping buckets of money into enlargement of the football stadium and a new covered training field building.
know of any, conditions, price and countries covered?
What to google for?
A blog I run for the wealth
I can really see VoIP being combined with 802.11 mesh networks.
Wouldn't that be something to see? Almost like walkie-talkies or cell phones, but more advanced than both, and cell towers not required.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
The article is big on buzzwords but really light on the details. The only way I can see an organization like that spending a half-million monthly on telecommunications is if every single line was direct from the CO.
If this is the case, a traditional PBX system could have probably saved a similar amount of money, albeit with a higher monthly cost but a much lower initial outlay of money.
VoIP is great technology and is due to go a long way, but 802.11 is far from being the be-all-end-all solution to our wants and needs. The fact is that user density you can get from a single AP just isn't even close to being adequate enough to support a large user base.
You know what it's like on a cell phone network when you're trying to make a call in a metro area during peak use times. Can you imagine what it will be like on an 802.11 network with CSMA/CD?
I sense a little frustration......just kidding. Unfortunately, the "compatibility" issues you're speaking of are the result of many different players in the VoIP arena adding "extra value" to otherwise open protocols (H.323, SIP) to get you on their service. Hopefully once VoIP gains more credibility, you're issues will become moot.
The thing about GSM or whatever is that there is a transport protocol and a mechanism for allowing your call to be effortlessly handed off to another access point. However with GSM, you login to a network of base stations when you switch the telephone on. You can't roam to another provider's base station unless you logout and log back in.
What is needed first is better handover between accesspoints. Reauthentication and association delays can cause call interruptions. If you pay for 802.11 access, there needs to be a way of transparently roaming - to allow mini-providers. Again stuff is being done there, but it isn't ready yet.
See my journal, I write things there
Surprised they didn't waste this money on their stadium(s) for their precious Razorbacks.
/.
Now they can really brag to mom/sister and dad/brother about their accomplishments...they made
About 1.5 years ago I discovered the discontinued VOIP Blaster (thanks slashdot!). I was fortunate to get several of the remanufactured units for $30 each..
I started VOIPing with my business partner (Seattle to Virginia) using the freely available Fobbit (fobbit.org) software to drive the VB. It works very well and essentially allowed us to keep our voice link constant on speaker phone for hours at a time every day (just unmute to talk, etc).
I quickly setup a test using my wireless laptop (the VB is USB) and it worked FINE. I was able to subsequently use the VB from public hotspots (though NAT will get in the way).
The VB generates only 6 to 8 KBytes/second of traffic. Quality is good using UDP mode, TCP was unacceptable. Of course some codecs generate substantially more, taking up nearly an entire T1 for each conversation.
As for NAT configuration.. Fobbit is not very demanding. I only had to open one port.
I have also tunneled live video using SSH over 802.11b at 3 to 6 frames/sec. It was a quick test and we were once again impressed by what could be accomplished using an SSH tunnel. This test was local in Seattle and the systems were on cable modem and DSL.
Yeah, they should be worried..
If I'm not mistaken the up coming 802.15 has Data and VoIP included in it's standard, and it's supposed to offer far greater data rates and security features over 802.11. And, if we are all lucky it will also be a non-line of sight technology which would blow 802.11 out of the water as a feasable technology.
*this space for rent*
It has been my experience that there are very few working VoIP clients (either SIP or H.323) that are compatible with NAT'd environments. Which is what most 802.11 IP addresses are.
Sorry you have it wrong. I am willing to bet that in the end, customers will still be paying their $XX.xx per month ($49.95 for cellphone in my case, after i'm raped with hidden fees) instead of Really Really Cheap Prices for long distance and local calls.
Consumers won't reap the benefits of reduced costs, the companies will. And telcos will leverage their branding to take customers from what would be the competition. That, or telcos will be your ISP, charging for VoIP+wireless. I, for one, would welcome our "free" market competition... but i doubt it will happen to the extent that we wish.
By "blue-boxing technology" do you mean what I'm thinking you mean?
It seems to me that even though the data carried by a phone conversation at even normal rates of 56kbps is pretty small, by the time you add in packet overhead, framing, etc, you're actually talking more like 70kbps or more in actual bandwidth consumed, and I've yet to see a 802.11b station that could really deliver more than 800-900kbps in even ideal conditions (1 PC, 1 base station, adjacent to each other).
Which means you MIGHT get 10 active voice calls on a single base station without running into drops and other problems. It might be great for an in-home cordless phone setup or an isolated small business, but given the small number of channels and density, I can't see it working elsewhere.
How about a dual mode device that sits between cell towers and 802.11 phones? Use the cell network as the backbone for node-to-node communication and use 802.11 for the "last mile" kind of situation. Then we can finally have a nation-wide wireless data cloud by just putting up those devices.
Instead of replacing cell phones, somethign like that could change the role of the cell network...and make use of the infrastructure that's already there and waiting...hmm...
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
Certainly.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
If anyone hasn't already mentioned it, this is exactly what Nextel is doing now. Their complete network is based on VoIP. Last year or so we bought a bunch of the Nextel phones, and I bought the cable to plug them into the computer, (for programming 10 phones worth of speed dial numbers, rather quickly I might add). at any rate, one of the neat things that this same software displays is the IP address of the phone, which (surprise) is a 10.x series address. VoIP & 802.11(x) is a great thing. Nextel's biggest problem is the coverage, although I admit that it has gotten magnitudes better than when they first came out. I envision a hybrid in the next 5 years that is a cross of VoIP/802.11 (ala Nextel) and some cross of PCS/CMDA service. Sprint PCS/Vision service is similar in this fashion, although I cannot confirm that it uses assigned IP addresses.
my 2 cents
think before you write, it'll save me moderator points.
I was talking to an american living in tokyo on #asterisk/irc.freenode.org a while back and he told me that some companies were selling mobile phone service with 802.11b and VOIP with some moderate success, but the main problem is the power consumption. It takes a bit of juice to keep the 802.11 radio up, even while it is just passively listening for packets destined for it. As a result, the phones had only about 4 hours of battery life in standby mode, and fewer still when talking.
One japanese company came up with a solution, which was to embed a standard low frequency radio pager into the phone. As a result, the phone could go into complete power save mode until it is notified that it has a call with the pager. I would imagine that callers to your number might have to wait on hold while you are contacted. With software like http://www.asterisk.org , it would be fairly straightforward to setup a situation like this.
I can only hope that phones like this show up on this side of the ocean sometime soon. As long as the radio pager speaks the same talk that a standard pager service does, anyone could deploy this kind of system.
check out net2phone. They are a complete VOIP solution provider. So the phones/software/etc is all proprietary and only works with their service, but the rates are pretty incredible and it's damn simple to setup from inside a firewall.
the above is my personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect that of the little voices in my head
There are other environments which run uncompressed voice, but most or maybe all of the Cisco stuff can do compressed.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
If it works 75 % of the time, 95 % of the people will use it, because it will be cheaper.
what in the fuck are you talking about?
Are you telling me that you cannot run a single VoIP call behind your NAT router? Seriously? No, I mean, really?
What software are you trying to use that doesn't connect to a single port? I'm using vonage, and the way the provide the hardware is already preconfigured, drop it in behind your NAT (Bering LRP in my case) and turn it on, thats it, simple, done.
Now, when working with multiple VoIP calls behind the same router, I'm sure that can be a bit unique and may require some additional configuration, I don't know as I haven't tried it yet. But it seems atleaast the way that vonage does it, is to establish a connection (always on?) that keeps the port open and live. This is slightly different because they have a central location for thier calls to tie back to.
But, I relate what you are talking about to the equivalent of Yahoo's Messanger - Super Mode video conferencing. That requires some additional configuration, and it requires you to point the port to an internal IP, not an IP range, although it might work as well, again haven't tried it.
Perhaps I don't fully understand what you are talking about, but at face value it doesn't seem to make any sense that you cannot do port assignments through your NAT.
think before you write, it'll save me moderator points.
You sound a lot like a consumer (:-), so check out things like Net2Phone and Dialpad. But also check out Free World Dialup. Vonage is trying to replace your whole phone line, including local and inbound calls, rather than just skimming your outgoing long distance calls.
Consumer-oriented services typically want your credit card to set up an account, though there are other models. Business-oriented services usually have more interesting options for billing, accounting, grouping users together, incoming calls, etc. Hardware ranges from single-line frobs to 4-line PC boards to 24-line T1s to PBXs, etc. Check out www.openh323.org if you're interested.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The only way I can see for a typical university to have been spending half a million dollars a month was if they still had Centrex lines, with each phone served by the local phone company office. Figure $20/phone, that's about 25000 phones (probably fewer, because there's also long-distance charges, etc.) If you replace that with a PBX or equivalent, you'll save a lot of money on monthly charges, at the cost of upfront capital, and the big difference that VOIP makes is that IP PBXs are much cheaper than the older generations of PBXs. There are other things VOIP lets you do, such as using a long-distance service that accepts IP connections, but you could have done that from any PBX (typically adding some extra hardware), whereas Centrex service usually doesn't give you that choice - you've just got your choice of regular long-distance phone companies.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
$4M up front vs. $500K/month? That's a good deal even short term, even though in fact they'll need to hire several people to manage the system, so their savings won't be the full $500K. Still pays off in a year.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Somebody else commented that this still takes real estate, power, management, maintenance, etc. Yes, it does, but a lot less than you'd think - a Cisco Call Manager is basically a fancy router, and if they're using IP phones on everybody's desk, the rest of it's all decentralized. If they're using Ethernets, the hardware IP phones can share a jack with a PC (or the softphones are just software on the PC), though of course they still have to maintain the ethernets, and if they're using 802.11, they'll have some extra access points to maintain. The phones aren't maintenance free, but they're just pieces of hardware - if one of them breaks, replace it with a new one and tell it your phone number and you're up and running again.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Yes, but faster a faster internet ...
.....
lets say around 10 -20 megabits(VDSL -40 megs)
would make me cancel cable and go just with
internet access.
Content is important since the internet has little of it.
But that Kazaa thing
TSIA.
Just bend a wire coat hanger so that some of it is in the oven, the rest hanging out with the rubber door gasket pinching it into place. Wrap some tape around the place where it contacts the body of the microwave so it can't ground out.
Actually, I have a friend who's running VoIP w/ a company and a Cisco phone through a Cisco router running NAT and it works great...
Does anyone know cheap or free ways to call german regular Phones from the Internet? I know only net2phone and thats about 6 cents/min
So, VoIP looks like the free killer app that will let everyone make cheap phone calls and run the telecom business into the ground? wrong, all the big carriers are already working on it, the only thing that VoIP will do is screw over smaller telephone companies. course, if they can't make a profit, then no one will serve that area, which means no dsl or phone lines in areas that most big companies will not move into. but then, this is progress right?