VoIP As a Solution To Rural Broadband

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.

Comments

FCC definition of broadband

[E IS mC(Square)]

Not to be pedantic (and I understand the general drift of the article), but from wikipedia: "... the US FCC used 200 kbit/s in their definition until march 19th 2008 after which it was scaled up to require a minimum of 768 kbit/s to be defined as broadband and at that time the FCC introduced new tiers in their definition as follows: 1) 200kbit/s to 768kbit/s ("first generation data"); 2) 768kbit/s to 1.5Mbit/s ("basic broadband"); 3) 1.5Mbit/s to 3 Mbit/s; 4) 3Mbit/s to 6 Mbit/s; and 5) 6Mbit/s and above." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadband_Internet_access

Re:FCC definition of broadband

[Anonymous Coward]

"Broadband" isn't a data transmission speed, not anymore than "cable", "modem" or "DSL" are transmission speeds.

Here's a real definition of broadband:

broadÂband adjective

1. of, pertaining to, or responsive to a continuous, wide range of frequencies.

2. pertaining to or denoting a type of high-speed data transmission in which the bandwidth is shared by more than one simultaneous signal.

[definition]

Hence: "the broadband of 0-25kHz" mentioned in the article.

Re:FCC definition of broadband

[jc42]

Why were they allowed take a well-defined technical term and re-purpose it as meaningless marketing drivel?

The main reason is called the First Amendment. ;-) It permits anyone to misuse any term they like for any reason.

In this case, they're just Doing What Marketing Does. They use whatever words are effective in selling what they're selling. They figured out that to the public that has no clue about such technical terms, "broadband" just means "faster". So they adopted it as a marketing term.

It's nothing at all unique to Internet marketing. The same approach is used everywhere that it works. People have been complaining about marketers' misuse of words since marketing came into existence back in prehistory. There's no way we're going to change this, short of educating the public about the actual definition of the terms. And considering the general public contempt for geeky stuff that requires education, that's not going to happen any time soon.

(This misuse isn't nearly as agregious as the use of "quantum" to mean "large", when the technical definition is more like "the smallest difference possible". I'm sure others here have their favorite misuses of technical terms. ;-)

Re:Sounds cheaper

[Amouth]

i don't think "YouTube is still a painful experience" is due in any respect to your connection speed - it has alot more to do with the content and people who comment there.