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VoIP Questioned
87C751 writes "C|Net is carrying a very FUDdy story on the downside of VoIP telephony. Alongside the reasonable point of 911 dialing being unavailable during service and power outages, the writeup mentions broadband over power lines as a possible solution to the power failure problem. (talk about your cognitive dissonance!) It also notes that VoIP customers may not be listed in the local phone book, causing problems with "major fast food companies" (do they mean pizza deliveries?), and that Tivo requires a POTS line for initial setup (which sounds like Tivo's problem, not VoIP's)."
Seems VoIP is still in it's infancy...
I'll be waiting for it to move out of Gen-1 status to the Gen-2 or Gen-3 devices.
What amazes me is the lack of talk regarding the security of these devices...
This is a joke, right?
All the problems he mentions would certainly be valid points, but only if you're dumb enough to completely replace your phone system with VoIP!
I have VoIP, but I kept one of my POTS lines when I switched. Without long distance service, it costs me a miniscule amount per month, and I can still use it for my TiVo, alarm system, 911, and so on. Everything he brings up is such a non-issue, it's almost funny.
The only valid point he has is that it's difficult to get yourself listed in the phone book, but that's not a technical issue and should be resolved shortly.
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Well, I guess that solves the problem of your internet connection being up while your power is down. I don't think it's going to help you much, though. I have an alternate solution, and it's called a UPS. Of course, if your ISP doesn't have their equipment on a battery backup, then you're screwed. Mediacom in Lake County, CA seems to have a very short-life battery backup on some of their hardware, because their network would actually go down before my UPS ran out (only a 650VA, and I had a 19" monitor at the time, plus an Athlon Tbird 1.4GHz) when the power failed, which is a common occurrence there.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Any new technology will face the exact same *kind* of issues. Users won't like it because of x, y, or z. The real issue isn't the technology itself but how well the businesses manage it, promote it, and so forth. Similarly, if usability doesn't improve, the issues in the article will become quite real and slow (or stop) any real progress in the market, and that would be the real crime.
How to Download YouTube Videos
Strange, I have a cellphone and they deliver to me all the time. In fact, I ordered from a friend's house in a different area code using my cellphone and they had my name on record (printed on the label) and no problems. Sounds like you got a bad-egg Dominos.
Your 48v (?) POTS line continues to provide current during emergency because the telco has backup power supply: there's virtually no complexity on the user side (the phone is powered from the line, and analogue phones are dead simple and largely robust electromechanical device).
On the other hand, even if your telco can keep PPP up during an emergency, and even if the telco pulled out 911 VOIP at the exchange and routed it on high availability circuits to operators to minimise internetworking failures, you still have the horrendous problem at the user side: i.e. complex customer home equipment that runs off domestic power that has large number of failure modes.
Even mobiles are better in an emergency (i.e. handsets have portable power, and the basestation and infrastructure has emergency power + failover features).
So even if you get QoS and all other other things in place to make VOIP really work: how the hell are you going to ensure high availability?
Otherwise, VOIP is going to great for multimedia conferencing and everything else.
I would say it's less of a biz issue and more of a social issue. Most of society didn't grow up with the kinds of technology advancement we have today.
There is also what I have been told many times. "We've always done it that way, why change." Most people don't like change and that is a big change.
Evolution or ID?
"If my VoIP doesn't work, chances are my POTS phones isn't working either."
Very wrong. Your VOIP can easily fail because of so many domestic conditions, while the telco easily continues to send you 48v + current in the local loop.
"If I needed to dial 911, I'd use my mobile phone rather than the POTS/VoIP one, because it's in my pocket all the time, I'd be able to get the call made faster. I don't see this being an issue for most people."
Wrong again: the penetration of mobile phones is woefully low, and actually of reasonable cost, and not entirely of wide enough coverage. On the other hand, POTS two wire is just about everywhere and entirely dead cheap and simple for everyone to use.
POTS is not going anywhere for a long time, even if its market share will decline.
Yesterday, my daughter told me that she was having trouble hearing me because her next door neighbor's phone conversation was too loud. She even recognized the voice! Don't think for a minute that no one can hear. Even if you are on a wire connection, the other end may not be.
1) The price of VoIP's thriftiness
Sounds condescending to me, or designed to be scary, typical tag line to get you worked up over the topic. Passing judgement before the facts are presented.
2) If you have a home alarm system, need to dial 911, use TiVo or simply want your phone number included in the phone book, you're likely to be out of luck.
Home alarm system's and TiVo can change. TiVo is a simple non-essential piece of hardware which should change to accomodate such customers as VOIP catches on. Alarm systems will figure a way around this. Of course, if you feel you can expend money on an alarm system for your home, you can probably afford the current rates your phone company is charging. I'm not saying an alarm system is elitist... its just expensive.
As for phone listing, well damnit who cares? I'll pick up my next pizza. Besides, you can keep your old listing in the phone book when you switch to Vonage and as VOIP catches on this will be taken care of.
As for 911 dialing during power outages, the article willfully and obviously glosses over the possibility that people might have cell phones. This is what makes me feel this is FUDish, because, while the 911 issue is important, the article failed to cover this very important and obvious point. I believe they were afraid that the original alarmist tone of the article would have been defused because 911 dialing is important to everyone, while all those other points are only important to a select few.
3) VoIP certainly has it's selling points--unlimited local and long-distance dialing plans that are about 30 percent cheaper than standard services, dialing from any broadband connection and being able to choose a phone number regardless of your location--the TiVo situation if just the tip of the drawback iceberg.
First, try 50 percent, maybe more. Vonage has a plan for just $15 for 500 talk minutes, anywhere in the country. For local free calling and no special LD plans, Verizon charges me somewhere between $30 and $40.
Second, what the hell is the last part of that paragraph? It seems so cryptic to me.
4) Protecting your home could get tougher, as well. Some home alarm systems have trouble with broadband connections, or their manufacturers don't yet trust the reliability of the Internet.
Back to this a second, this sentences reeks of FUD, because it says "protecting your home could get harder." Not all of us buy alarm systems... goodness! I can't protect my home without a phone? GASP!
5) 911 calls over VoIP are usually routed through a third party, and there's been the occasional detour to an emergency call center in the wrong part of the country. Because of VoIP's mobility--subscribers can use any broadband connection anywhere--emergency operators won't automatically know where the person's calling from.
Facts please? I've heard of no such "detours." Can we have some proof to back this up please? Even instances from the slashdot community would be nice.
And yes, they do tout VOIP as being mobile, and yet 911 calls could be routed back home while you are on the road. However, this will be a learning point for early adopters, but future versions should handle this better. This is by design for the convenience of the customer.
6) The Bell operating companies, comprised of Verizon, Qwest Communications International, SBC and BellSouth, prefer to wait until they build high-speed fiber-optic connections to homes for their all-out VoIP launches. The so-called fiber-to-the-premises initiatives, however, could take a decade or more to complete.
Translation: They don't have the infrastructure yet and they don't want to kill their current phone business too fast
7) Both Cox and Comcast are promising faster VoIP rollouts.
Translation: they are counting on early adopters so that they can eat the baby bells' lunches.
8) Despite its drawbacks, VoIP is attractin
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I guess you weren't on the east coast of the US during the blackout last August. Most cell phones didn't work - probably due to overload. But POTS worked (at least in NJ), but not if you had only cordless phones. God help anyone who had an actual emergency during the blackout.
911 operators have no way of tracing where you are calling from if you use your cell phone. On the other hand, if you dial 911 on your POTS line and drop the receiver because a bad guy is chasing you around the house, the operators must send the police to your house... and they know exactly where your call is coming from.