Slashdot Mirror
VoIP Gets A Big Backer And Another Lawsuit
Ungrounded Lightning writes "Time Warner Cable has announced plans to roll out a VoIP telephone service. I see two implications. First: ISPs providing VoIP phone service have a competitive advantage over third-party VoIP/PSTN providers (such as Vonage), who must ride on top of a separate broadband subscription for the packet transport. This could lead to consolidation of this industry segment in the hands of ISPs. Second: Cable ISPs have an advantage over Telco DSL operations - where a VoIP offering would cannibalize their own POTS and short-range long-distance revenue. This implies rollout on cable providers first, followed by harder times for telcos, long-distance companies, and third parties."
chipperdog writes "In this article it is mentioned that the small rural phone companies in North Dakota are filing a complaint against a local VoIP provider, CallSmart. Interesting to see how this one works out, given what happened in Minnesota a few months ago."
I agree that Time Warner (and other, especially cable based ISPs) will have a huge competative advantage over third-party providers. But, in my area TWC is going to be offering VOIP in early next year, but they want to charge 39.95/mo for service that I can get for 25 bucks from vonage and they won't even be offering voice mail initially!
I think government and telcos need to realized that VOIP can and shouldn't be regulated anymore than any internet-based service. Governments need to find other revenue streams than regulatory fees....just my $.02
My office is looking to go to VoIP since we are in the planning stages of a move. The estimated cost savings is around $6000 per month for less than 150 people. The drawback is we would be ditching our entire phone system (and phones) and purchasing new equipment (we are talking about $60K at least). No decision has been made yet.
The other added benefit is that I would be responsible for phone traffic, also, in that it would be routed through the normal network. More job security...heh.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
I'm not convinced that cable really has an advantage over the phone company. The cable company doesn't get 7*24 at all...
If it rains, we have an outage.
If the weather's hot, we have an outage.
If our cat farts within ten feet of the modem, we have an outage.
Yes, I like my cable modem for the download speed, but I won't give them my phone service anytime soon. Calling tech support is often an exercise in futility.
BTW - I have no land line, my wife and I use wireless only. It's not as reliable as a land line, but it's actually cheaper and works pretty damn well.
Alan.
Cable ISPs have no experience running a teleco, but they have a marginal technical advantage over a non-ISP VoIP provider simply because of better network routing
Actually, I think that, by owning the network end point (i.e. the consumer VoIP gateway) as well as all of the switching fabric between the end point and the VoIP-to-POTS gateway, the ISP has a substantial advantage in terms of quality of service.
Think about it this way: by using the QoS features that come with the switches, the ISP could guarantee a much better user experience for their customers, while third-party VoIP providers would have to trust best effort. (In fact, if they ISPs are less-than-moral, they could also use QoS on their network to ensure that they had better voice quality than any competitors that also rode their network.)
Taxes that apply to current voice tariffed services do not apply to "data" services the same way.
Since all the carriers are actually carrying most, if not all of their "voice" traffic by the same methods, on the same kind of equipment as "data", there is money to be made carrying voice but calling it data.
Very little infrastructure remains circuit switched and is now packet switched like data. Much of this was driven by the requirements for pumping a bunch of traffic over fiber; WDM, DWDM etc.
Now the efforts are clearly to pave the way for providers to pocket the difference or most of it; this difference being the amounts charged to the customer which are turned over to the government as taxes.
If you pay $100 per month for "voice" services and $30 of that is taxes, and you switch to VOIP for $85 without taxes, you save $15 at the same time the provider makes an additional $15.
And this doesn't even address the investment tax credits and "cost of doing business" deductions the providers enjoy for building up the ability to offer new services.
So what we have is a bunch of people angling for position in the inevitable VOIP fray.
Some are clearly innovators.
Some want to be first just to stake a claim for later work.
Some have deep pockets but nothing else to offer. So they are about to expend massive legal fees and efforts to keep others out of the game.
If you can't innovate; Litigate.
The end result will ultimately be that the average customer spends about the same as they do right now. How the fees are assessed will look different, but the bottom line will be pretty much the same.
The providers will then benefit or fail based upon how successful their legal tactics were in creating, sustaining or closing tax loopholes in order to benefit their bottom line.
There is no altruism in the move to VOIP.