Slashdot Mirror
British Telecom Plans to Ditch POTS Network
Samurai Cat! writes "Yahoo news has a story up regarding British Telecom's plans to scrap their traditional circuit-switched telecom network in favor of an IP-based system." Their press release has more information.
We've got ip-tel at work and it's a right bitch at times - almost like talking to someone over on a mobile. There's nothing worse than having the beginnings and endings of someone's speech cut off!
Even with QoS, ip-tel is over rated. "It should do that"... yeah, right!
Considering the "impending doom" we keep hearing about of the lack of available IPv4 numbers... one can only hope they intend to roll out their new network with IPv6. Heck, even a few class A's and NAT'ing each one to 254 usable addresses wouldn't help them...
Bring it on, BT! The power of a national telephone monopoly is insignificant compared to the power of the Slashdot effect!
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Its not a dupe, its the echo coming back across the transatlantic lines from the original article.
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
so, like what, i need a 2.4GHz whistle for that?
64 bytes from www.slashdot.org (66.35.250.151): icmp_seq=1 ttl=1 week time=2 days
British Telecom Plans to Ditch POS Network.
>1. What are the odds of this actually being pulled off?
Its quite possible. Major long distance carriers already do this. There are some technical issues, but they can be addressed, and VoIP uses bandwidth way more efficiently than a circuit switched network, so long term, the cost benefits do appear to be there.
>2. How much will this effect me, a regular dialup and telephone user of British Telecom?
As a voice user, there may be initial problems with echo, garbled voice, and delay if BT doesn't do their homework. Those problems can usually be quickly alieviated in most cases by properly employing the QoS features typically provided by high end routers.
A bigger issue is high speed modem use over VoIP, particularly if low bitrate codecs are used. Its possible that they could effectively cripple dialup ISPs without affecting voice quality in any perceptable way.. I don't know how the british communications regulations work, but here in the US, telcos can (with very few exceptions) do whatever they want to the lines so long as voice quality isn't affected (although they do have to support 9600bps data rates, who wants to surf at that speed.) Hopefully, they will keep in mind modem users, but they may decide this is a good time to force customers into broadband.
VoIP isn't as exotic as people may think--you've been using it for several years on most long-distance calls for at least part of the circuit. And all of this traffic is H.323 and not SIP.
1. What are the odds of this actually being pulled off?
It shouldn't be that difficult. BT's telephone network is based on System X (and it's competitor System Y). The national network is completely digital. Each customer line would be analog (unless you have ISDN) until the local exchange, where the signal would be converted into 64 Kbits digital. Advances in technology allowed a single circuit board (A4 sized) to handle up to 4 customer lines, so the entire telephone exchange for a small village could be inside a shed. BT would probably start with upgrading the national network, then do a local exchange trial in London, and then roll out across the country.
2. How much will this effect me, a regular dialup and telephone user of British Telecom?
You probably wouldn't notice anything. For each exchange, they would do a gradual switch over. They'd start by adding the new links using IP packets, test them, then allow customer calls to use them, and finally disable the old system.
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An elderly lady phoned her telephone company to report that her telephone failed to ring when her friends called - and that on the few occasions when it did ring, her pet dog always moaned right before the phone rang. The telephone repairman proceeded to the scene, curious to see this psychic dog or senile elderly lady.
He climbed a nearby telephone pole, hooked in his test set, and dialed the subscriber's house. The phone didn't ring right away, but then the dog moaned loudly and the telephone began to ring.
Climbing down from the pole, the telephone repairman found:
1. The dog was tied to the telephone system's ground wire via a steel chain and collar.
2. The wire connection to the ground rod was loose.
3. The dog was receiving 90 volts of signaling current when the phone number was called.
4. After a couple of such jolts, the dog would start moaning and then urinate on himself and the ground.
5. The wet ground would complete the circuit, thus causing the phone to ring.