Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

VoIP As a Solution To Rural Broadband

Posted by kdawson on from the tell-it-to-the-rbocs dept.

boyko.at.netqos recommends his article up at Network Performance Daily, which notes the recent reports that up to 30% of households do not have a landline telephone, preferring a VoIP or cell-phone based solution. What to do with the miles of last-mile phone line infrastructure already in place in almost all the homes across the country? Maybe there's a solution to rural broadband by using the high-reliability frequencies reserved for voice purely for data — and using VoIP to make phone calls. From the article: "Repurposing the broadband of 0-25kHz would result in... speeds of around 14.4 kBytes/s (or 115.9 kbits/s) upload and 28.8 kBytes/s (231.3 kbits/s) download. That's not much of a speed boost. Still, if you've been plodding along on a '56.6k' modem, at speeds of 7.2kBytes/s, this would be like an oasis in the desert. And what about those phone calls? Well, if you make the same phone calls with VoIP that you were with the standard 0-4kHz landline, it would only take about 20.8kbits/s using the G.723.1 codec — that still leaves you with 80% of your broadband capacity when on the phone — and 100% of your broadband when you're off it." Only the US FCC calls 231K "broadband," but as noted it does beat dialup.

2 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. What is this trying to solve? by Zironic · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Isn't the problem with rural DSL not so much signal strenght as much as that the telephone companies arn't terribly interested in putting down DSLAMs in the middle of nowhere?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_subscriber_line

    Also I suspect that data has higher quality requirements then just voice, small differences in the frequencies won't affect what you hear much but I'll mess up your loss ratio for data.

  2. Isn't this what modems do? by joshv · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Modems already use the voice frequency range. They max out at about 64 kbps - and I was under the impression that this was pretty much the theoretical maximum using the 0-4kHz band.

    Now, the author seems to be talking about pulling in the 4-25kHz band as well, but given that many modems can't manage to connect at even 28.8k in rural areas (I have personal experience with this) - this shows that even the 0-4kHz range is being heavily attenuated and distorted - why does he thing the 4-25KHz band will be any better without some upgrade to the lines involved? And if you are going to upgrade the lines, why not go full DSL?