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 ""

Comments

802.11 + VoIP == disaster in the making

[puzzled]

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.

Dual mode phones

[doormat]

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.

Single point of failure

[Anonymous Coward]

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.