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The Voice Over IP Insurrection
Chris Holland writes "Daniel Berninger wrote the most informative article about Voice over IP I've ever read, over at Om Malik's blog. It outlines in great details the history behind the evolution of traditional communication technologies framed within the convergence of various Internet-related technological advances, and the challenges PSTN telcos are facing to hold-on to their shares of this lucrative pie. Beyond mere technological issues, Berninger offers great parallels and insights on past, current, and future governmental regulatory policies. A must read for anyone who's ever talked on the phone."
I had VoIP for about 3 weeks (early June to June 30) before I got too frustrated. It was down pretty frequently; not nearly as dependable as my AT&T line. I got an echo, and the sound quality never was as good as a phone. I just decided to stick to cellular access, and cancelled before I started another month of fees. I'm happy with AT&T.
I'm probably at the karma cap. Mod up a funny troll instead, it lightens the mood
Hope it helps. Coral link.
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I don't think much else needs to be said about VoIP. It's wonderful technology and saves a lot of money on telephone bills if you're well connected with broadband. I use VoIP quite a bit, so it's worth mentioning a top VoIP reference on the internet, in fact the most comprehensive info directory on the topic I know of. Also of interest is the FCC (keep the boos down please) webpage on it.
I am currently using VoIP, mostly to save money. While the call quality is great, I think the real issue with VoIP is uptime and customer support. And I think the last issue is not accounted for when people talk about the potential savings from VoIP.
:-(
I can't remember the last time I picked up a regular phone and didn't get a dial tone. For VoIP on the other side, I had a number of extended outages (maybe a total of 10 hrs this year so far). There is just so much more that can break with VoIP, which is out of the control for the VoIP company. As a result, VoIP customer support is always busy, and never able to help
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Yes VoIP is huge, but p2p VoIP I think could even be bigger. I just started using Skype . If u thought that quality is a problem with VoIP then the Skype guys differ Here is waht they say in their FAQ
What can I do when I experience bad sound quality?
The PSTN (public switched telephone network) isn't as reliable as Skype-to-Skype calling. PSTN calls rely on traditional phone networks, which may have fluctuations in capacity and quality of termination. Please try your call again after some time.
I tried it out just for the heck of it and the quality is pretty good ( I expected p2p quality to be quite bad). I guess the biggies could jump in soon . Lets see what happens with p2p VoIP
From the article: "... For the first two-thirds of the 20th century, AT&T had manned Berlin Wall separating telecommunications and computing, but eventually, these two enormous technology tracks would be unified."
Sadly, this was not AT&T but the U.S. Justice Department which through a series of Consent Decrees required this harsh distinction.
The Consent Decree of 1956 forbid AT&T from engaging in any business other than "common carrier communication services"
Further restrictions appeared in the 1982 agreement.
These restraints were not removed until congress and the FCC asked them to be removed after the passage the 1996 Telecom Act.
I don't know about other VoIP providers, but Packet8.net has been great for me. I've had friends use the phone at my house and explain to them that they need to dial 1+area code+number and then when they get off the phone I tell them the call went over the internet.
Usually, they are surprised that it wasn't a "real" phone conversation. I have sold a lot of people on it because it's only 20 bucks a month. I'm switching to BroadVoice when they have area codes in my state, because they give you the SIP username/password so you can use Asterisk Linux PBX.
Chris
the only negative experience I've had with voip is that when you are downloading large files or heavy webpages the voices tend to distort a bit.
The Voice over IP Insurrection
Daniel Berninger, an old friend, a seriously smart guy and VoIP guru of sorts, and more recently senior analyst, for Tier1 Research, has been a great man to bounce ideas off. He and I have chatted about many things, and each time I come away learning something new. So last week he argued, "in the battle between Bellheads and Netheads, we're all Netheads now." Could not agree more. Here is his long missive on the VoIP insurrection, the best and most definitive essay you will ever read on this technology, where it is headed and why it is important. This is the second of my guest columns series where I bring the experts who know a thing or two about their respective areas of expertise.
What just happened?
The $3 billion dollar budget at Bell Laboratories did not include a single project addressing the use of data networks to transport voice when VocalTec Communications released InternetPhone in February 1995. As of 2004, every project at the post-divestiture AT&T Labs and Lucent Technologies Bell Labs reflects the reality of voice over Internet Protocol. Every major incumbent carrier, and the largest cable television providers, in the United States has announced a VoIP program. And even as some upstart carriers have used VoIP to lower telephony prices dramatically, even more radical innovators threaten to lower the cost of a phone call to zero--to make it free.
The VoIP insurrection over the last decade marks a milestone in communication history no less dramatic than the arrival of the telephone in 1876. We know data networks and packetized voice will displace the long standing pre-1995 world rooted in Alexander Graham Bell's invention. It remains uncertain whether telecom's incumbent carriers and equipment makers will continue to dominate or even survive as the information technology industry absorbs voice as a simple application of the Internet.
The roots of the VoIP insurrection trace back to four synchronistic events in 1968. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled MCI could compete with AT&T using microwave transport on the Chicago to St. Louis route. The same year, the FCC's Carterfone decision forced AT&T to allow customers to attach non-Western Electric equipment, such as new telephones, and modems, to the telephone network. The Department of Defense's Advanced Research Project Agency issued a contract to Bolt Beranek and Newman for a precursor to the Internet. And in July 1968, Andrew Grove and Gordon Moore founded Intel. Innovation in the communication sector remained the proprietary right of AT&T for most the 20th century, but events in 1968 breached the barriers that kept the telecom and information technology industries apart. For the first two-thirds of the 20th century, AT&T had manned Berlin Wall separating telecommunications and computing, but eventually, these two enormous technology tracks would be unified.
Two entrepreneurs barely out of their teens, Lior Haramaty and Alon Cohen, founded VocalTec Communications in 1993 based on the promise of packet voice technology they observed as members of the Israel Defense Force. Most military command and control used the highly survivable TCP/IP distributed data networks since the 1980's. The challenge of transporting voice over the networks arose as an imperative to support certain very sensitive voice commands like "drop the bomb", but the idea of commercializing packet voice did not occur to anyone until the arrival of Lior and Alon. How could slicing voice into 50 millisecond packets improve the telephone business? The tradition bound telephone industry types or "bellheads" spent their time before 1995 improving the Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) not replacing it.
Advances in communication from writing and paper to the printing press, telegraph, and telephone shape human progress. Some might have viewed VoIP as an interesting toy in 1995, but no one presently doubts it will dominate the communication future. The economies of scale assoc
Noone writes jokes in base 13!
FYI.
Vonage provide immediate 911 identification today. Included with basic service.
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At the risk of saying something that has been said before, I use www.freeworlddialup.com as my VoIP provider. Not only is it a free resource to do VoIP to VoIP calling, but it has several links to many "gateway providers." Check it out, I've been quite happy with the quality!
Try going to www.packet8.net they use a lot of Level3's infrastructure and so long as you area is covered by L3 for $3.00 p.m. you can make 911 calls which identify your location. All-in-all there are many god features in VoIP and it's much less inexpensive, espeically for overseas calls, than POTS lines because the Baby Bells over charge ebery which way. Me I have one POTS line and my VoIP line so I have the best of all worlds. Oh also if you are worried about VoIP have worse connectivity than a POTS line well some people in Florida would disagree with you. Try reading this: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040920/sfm107_1.html Here is some of it: ADVERTISEMENT According to Dr. Alan Lefkowitz, a subscriber to the Packet8 VoIP phone service, while traditional phone systems in the hard hit region were disabled from the storm, his broadband internet phone service not only kept on working but experienced no degradation in quality or consistency through even the worst phases of Hurricane Frances.
Or rather BT have finally caught up.
For domestic customers, BT Together offers free *national* calls for £16.50 (~$29.50) per month (off peak) or £25.50 (~$45.80) per month (any time of day).
I dunno how this compares to the US for pricing (I suspect you're going to tell me we're being ripped off :-) but it's a step in the right direction.
Of course, you're always free to stick with metered calls and cable operators will usually let you call their own phone networks for free (not that I'd ever, ever again let Telewest near my house)
It's been out since about '95 or '96, is totally free and can work over TCP/IP or direct dial. And it encrypts your communications.t ml
Here's the download page: http://web.mit.edu/network/pgpfone/pgpfone-form.h
I have gas, but my car uses petrol.
Ok, I rescind my previous post. Skype rocks. It works on my wife's Powerbook, my compatibility-crutch Win2k box, and my Gentoo Linux box.
:)
Maybe they make enough on the $0.02/min SkypeOut service to keep them from using my bandwidth and CPU cycles for illicit purposes.