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VOIP, The Traditional Telephony Killer?
FrenchyinOntario writes "According to an article on IT World Canada's web site, an Ontario-based technology research firm says that 23% of small-to-medium-sized businesses have already implemented VOIP technology, and that traditional telephony companies need to adapt or die (big surprise there!) in order to remain viable. I don't necessarily agree with research analyst's George Goodall's claim that "It may be too late," since VOIP still suffers from troubling security issues as well as the possibility of SPITstorms. It's still too early to tell whether it will be a rehash of ten years ago when the telephone companies (even before the rise of the ILECS after the 1996 Telecom Reform Act) pishposhed the rising popularity of the Internet until they jumped onboard at the last minute."
Shudnt traditional telephone companies be more afraid of cellphones than VOIP?
traditional tel companies can lobby congress to drive up the costs because idiots don't realize 911 won't work, which was told to the purchaser prior to the sale!
we can't compete, so lets buy leverage!
VoIP for personal use - yes. VoIP for small business - not ready for prime time.
If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
I doubt that the poor audio quality is caused by iConnectHere, it's more likely to be the network from my PBX to them. Packet switching networks are not configured for guaranteed latency; if some are, good luck ripping your ISP roots out and migrating to a possibly better ISP. That would be easily the most difficult option, and with least guarantee of any improvement.
Your post touches on something that is truth.
I am a rational anarchist, as in the kind from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein. It seems that one of the facets of human nature is a desire to tell other people what to do, and what they may not do, often under the pretext of 'for their own good.
I dislike laws and government, however, I will accept any laws and government that other people feel are required for their safety and well-being. If I find a law tolerable, I tolerate it. If I find it untolerable, I ignore it.
I do not run around killing people because I would not normally do so; however, I would have no problem violating the law against depriving the government of a tax paying citizen (the worst crime of all), if I felt it neccessary to do so.
Same goes with all other laws. If I find it neccessary to act in a fashion which the law prohibits, I ignore the law. I also ignore laws which I find stupid.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
I know a lot of people with unreliable computers. But that doesn't mean I'll never get a computer...
I caught the Mountain Wumpus! He gave me his treasure chest ($100) to let him go free again.
Would somebody mind clarifying which part of telephony they're talking about? VoIP doesn't seem to pose a threat just to traditional phone companies -- right now, VoIP carriers, from what I can tell, offer all of the call quality of cellular service, and none of the convenience.
The real threat, to my mind, is to traditional PBX vendors, thanks in part to efforts like Asterisk, to say nothing of commercial soft switches from non-traditional players like 3com, Cisco, and Snom. It's possible that a company could "deploy VoIP" and still use a traditional phone company outside its walls. Unlike a call that goes over the open Internet to reach its destination, one company can manage its own network well enough to ensure that, for the part of the call that's VoIP, call quality isn't impacted. On top of this, remember that open standards like SIP and H.323 mean that a PBX vendor will have a harder time locking a client in to its own proprietary telephone sets. I'm kinda thinking intra-organization VoIP might be the thrust of the article, since they mention Nortel and Avaya (switch manufacturers) rather than, say, Verizon and SBC (carriers).
Letsee, the business owner has to manage two distinct networks, IP and telephony. However, any way you slice it, if you can come up with a technology that will enable the business to reduce the number of networks (components, cabling, management frameworks, admin personel) and hence expenses. This is a Good Thing (TM). The same holds true for storage arrays, operating systems, server vendors etc..
If you've already got people to manage your IP network, why not just extend them to include voice?
Traditional PBX doesn't even offer me the choice of reducing expenses.
SPam over Internet Telephony ... storm ..
I fail to see how this is relevant though. Using VoIP can mean many different things. For example, a business can use VoIP to link their phone system between branch offices, and use it to make free calls between them. This is as opposed to getting point-to-point links (like T1s) between the buildings, where you pay the telco loop fees, usage fees, etc.
A business can use VoIP to make long distance calls, usually at a fraction the price of even the CLEC long distance rates.
A business can get local numbers in other markets where they would otherwise not be able to, or not be able to for any pratical amount of money.
We use VoIP at our company (small business), along with copper. We have 3 copper lines (plus fax) coming in. Outgoing local calls are placed on two of those lines (local calls are free, and only two lines are used to try and be sure there's an available incoming line). Long distance calls are routed through a VoIP provider, along with any calls beyond our copper capacity. The 3 lines are on a hunt group, and I'm actually awaiting a change to put our DID (incoming VoIP line) in the hunt group as well. When that's done, it will mean that if the 3 copper lines are in use, incoming calls will come in over VoIP, giving us a basically unlimited capacity to take or place calls, and at a fraction of the cost it would take to do it by buying additional copper lines.
That said, I wouldn't go entirely VoIP, at least at this point. Our internet connection has been pretty good, but it's not perfect, and we don't have an SLA with it. When it comes down to it, copper is just more reliable than an internet connection. For us, if our internet goes down, having only 3 lines won't kill us (though it can be annoying).
Anyway, the point I was eventually trying to get to was that despite having VoIP, we don't have any way of calling into our system without going over the PSTN (public switched telephone network -- aka the regular global phone network you use everyday), which effecively means to the outside world that we don't have VoIP. Though spammers could potentially use VoIP providers to do telemarketing or whatever they want to do at cheaper rates than using I/CLECs, the cost is still not 0. Their calls is still getting placed on the PSTN which means they get billed.
In the future, who knows what will happen. I have no doubt if the costs drop to 0 (or low enough that it's basically 0) like email, then "SPIT" will become a problem. Hopefully we've learned enough with the flawed email system that we won't let that happen, though I'm not sure what efforts are being put in to that problem right now.
Speak before you think
If I find a law tolerable, I tolerate it. If I find it untolerable, I ignore it.
In other words, you do what the hell you like, and if it happens to be legal, well, that's just lovely.
Don't dress selfishness up as something grander than it really is.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
I wonder when we'll get error404s and telephone spyware when phoning.
What, you never get the "this number is not available" tone when mistyping a number? That would be the old phone system equivalent of a 404.
As for spyware, the police has been able to tap regular phones for years. And other people too, if they know how to do it (it's simple) and where to find the cable.