Qwest Launches VoIP Trial

prostoalex writes "Qwest Communications International, a local phone operator covering 14 Northern and Western United States, launched its first Voice-over-IP trial in Minneapolis/St.Paul area. 'The future of voice communications will be based on the Internet', Qwest's CEO was quoted as saying." Also in the news: some vague plans by AT&T to use VoIP as well.

Comments

Dialup over VoIP?

[talexb]

How soon till be start hearing about people using dial modems over VoIP phone lines for Internet access?

Telemarketers

[haystor]

Am I the only one that doesn't want VOIP to lower costs so that telemarketing can be outsourced to less expensive countries? At least now there are costs keeping the telemarketing volume below the spam volume. That, and they can usually speak English.

I don't want everyone that can hook a phone into the internet to be able to call me.

So,

[w.p.richardson]

Can the telephone company-like regulation and tax of the internet be far behind?

I don't think so.

So, let me get this straight

[Anonymous Coward]

I need a phone line from the telephone company so I can get DSL so I can use VOIP to talk to people over the phone?

Well, yeah....

[BWJones]

'The future of voice communications will be based on the Internet',

How long did it take these guys to figure this one out? VOIP has been around for a while now and a number of folks have been using it rather successfully. We have been using iChat to video conference from North America to New Zealand for remote collaboration for a while now leading me to wonder which companies are in control of all that excess fiber bandwidth that is sitting around.

Latancy

[penguinoid]

I bet the Internet Phone will cause an immense improvement in latancy. (Unless people enjoy speaking with several milliseconds latancy).

Re:that's all well and good...

[I_Want_This_ID]

only in very limited housing developments. And here in the twin cities, those developments often get sued, because the fiber to every home in the area runs voice, data, and cable programming; the telco's & cable operators don't like their turf being stepped on.

I had a friend that had to go and testify in defense of the development she was moving into because of this very reason.

Since telemarketers

[panxerox]

would be transmitting over the internet could they be sued using anti "spam" laws? i mean spam is afterall spam.

Still has issues...

[dakkon1024]

Cable vision has done something similar, which worked out well, but there are some interesting problems. When the power goes out, you're out of luck. Even with a UPS if the power is out for a few hours, not much you can do about it unless everybody buys a home generator. Also, they where denied 911. Meaning that there is no 911 service because it wasn't deemed reliable enough to host one. Small problems, but you still seem to need another phone just in case.

Just what I want...

[hawkbug]

I want my phone service to cut out everytime a Microsoft worm hits the wild..... I'll stick to current "old phone" technology for the time being, thank you.

Re:Analog

[Steve Franklin]

"its all data."

"Hello, emergency? There's a man trying to break down my front door with a chain saw!"

"We apologize for the inconvenience, but this program is not responding. Please reboot your telephone and try again."

will they really do it?

[defwu]

It will be very interesting to see if they actually roll out a VOIP solution that works for the masses. Vonage has a pretty successful model, but IMHO it has a pretty limited audience : those who have high bandwith connections and are willing to risk losing calls. I mean, how much would it suck if your router went down and you dropped all incoming calls? And since your computer is now your integrated communications terminal, you lose all voice mail capability as well.

I think the age of converged communications is here, and am happy that large telcos are going to start moving that direction, but maybe we ought to think about another model, other than the large telco ("Hey we own the wires!") pardigm.

It's not really a VoIP service

[andrews]

It's not a VoIP service despite what the marketing droids call it. It's a POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) gateway service which is a very different animal. VoIP doesn't require a phone company, just an IP network connection.

What Qwest and the other bells (and Vonage) are doing is allowing VoIP call termination to the existing POTS network.

Everyone's seen the writing on the wall and it says "POTS is dead, long live the packet!"

At some point a network effect will kick in when there is a critical mass of VoIP users who discover everyone they call is on VoIP and realize they don't need the bells for anything.

VOIP For residential users

[John Murray]

Why VOIP is a good thing:

• POTS phones are too inexpensive.
  
• POTS phones are too simple. With VOIP I need a lot expensive equipment in a complex setup.
  
• Who needs line powered phones. I like having to have my own battery bank, and generator to keep IP network up. I'm not longer at the phone companies mercy for powering my phones!
  
• My Broadband provider is much more reliable then the phone company.
  
• Having stop using my broadband connection to make a phone call reminds me of my old dial-up days.
  
• High voice quality is overrated, with VOIP I get compressed sound, and dropouts just like I was talking on a cell phone!
  
• Who needs E911 serivce, I can get out my phone book an look up the number when I have an emergency, and I can tell them where I am. No more big brother tracking where I'm calling from.
  
• What better way to route local calls then all around the country on the internet backbone, then back to my town.
  
• I no longer have to pay those damn universal service fees, if those poor people want phone service they can full price , or suffer with out it. They can use a pay phone(these still exist?).
  

POTS = Plain Old Telephone Serivce, the basci analog serivce you get from the phone company.

Part of a Trend

[mugnyte]

This is yet just another business model that needs drastic changes based on the networked digital economy. Libraries, Travel Agents, Porn, Gambling, Advertising, Music [and eventually] Movie distribution, and now telephone communication. All going to the packets.

There is something scary about so much economy on the wires, but such will be the Information Age. The telephone companies are one of the larger entities who's cheese is getting moved, and I don't expect them to go down without a crying about it. The RIAA is another who now has to accept that their content will be on the lines to stay.

Once everyone starts using end-point phones that accept not only traditional lines, but ethernet, we're going to see a very low barrier-to-entry for providing phone service, IMO. Once this steps up, all the bells and whistles we again be sold to us (photo, video, messaging, etc). There's a slew of new possibilities that a lot of new players could innavte into such a system. I'm looking forward to it.

Imagine if you will:
- Scanning photos, receipts, etc into your [cell] phone for the recipient, live or to an answering machine. Or sending them a video.
- Getting a message on your phone from your mother who thinks "this commercial, watch this" or "this newspaper article" was really interesting or funny. Ok, maybe this isn't all good.
- Calling your home silently and hopping around the house phones to check their cameras (babysitter, teenagers, security).
- Having a web page served from your phone that holds your recorded messages, images, memos, stored documents, etc. And being able to pull them out of another phone.

mug

Not so surprising.

[i_r_sensitive]

And, in point of fact, four years ago the company I worked for was negotiating with AT&T to adopt their VoIP plan, So AT&T may be vague, but they probably beat everyone else to the punch.

The thing is, the best way for the telco's to do this is not to use the public internet backbone, but their existing infrastructure. Consider, they allready have the copper and fiber in place, The could then use VoIP to vastly increase the amount of traffic which they could support.

This also obviates most of the quality issues inherent in the internet. It would allow the telco to continue to provide a high quality service without relying on temperamental internet links. Gateways to the public internet could be used when needed, but their use would probably be best avoided except where no other route existed.

This would allow the phone companies to provide VoIP service without all the potential issues of dropping such traffic into the uncontrolled internet. Consider they will be charging you for this service, they need to provide the best and most reliable service, what better way than to keep it to infrastructure they control or have binding agreements with the controllers of, rather than an uncontrolled medium.

Vonage

[Docrates]

I use Vonage, pay $40.00 a month and have unlimited US-wide service. My phone number is of the Miami area (area code 786, but I could have chosen any area code) and I use a regular telephone.....And I do all this from my home in Central America.

They give you a little cisco thingy that you hook up to your hub and configures itself using DHCP. I have a 192Kbps connection and NO-ONE has been able to figure out I'm using voip. In fact, voice quality is much better than the regular Cable & Wireless telephony service (wich is pretty good I might add).

Try it, it even has voicemail, caller ID, and all the other regular goodies.