My question is: Have other people heard of similar attempts by the telephone companies to have "metered Internet access"? > It seems they would need a hardware level signal analyzer on their switching equipment to differentiate between voice/data. >Does anyone know by what means such a technology could be implemented?
Check out a product called 'Internet Thruway" that routes a call based on the Called Number. The idea is for telcos to implement this product as a back-end to their access network so calls being made to a Thruway provider never reach the voice network. It is instead sent (via IP and L2F) directly to the ISP's network. SBC is already committed to deploying this in parts of Texas. Check out the full story at www.nortel.com and search on 'Internet Thruway' Attached is a piece of the press release mm mm sssss nnnnnn * Bharat Ranjan * m m m s nnnnnnn * Network Engineer * m m m sssss nn nn * MSN Network Services * m m s nn nn * (206)-936-0471 * m m sssss nn nn * bharatr@microsoft.com * ******************************************************* * The opinions/ideas in this memo are not necessarily * * those of Microsoft Corp. * ******************************************************* ______________________ Nortel Announces Internet Thruway for Public Carriers Research Triangle Park, NC -- Nortel has announced Nortel Internet Thruway, the industry's first high-performance, end-to-end solution to help public carriers more efficiently handle the impact of rapidly growing Internet and telecommuting traffic. Available today, Nortel Internet Thruway works in a multivendor switching network to elegantly groom long-duration data and Internet calls off the voice network to a data network, minimizing the impact of the traffic on the voice network and allowing carriers to offer new services to data users, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and companies offering remote access and telecommuting. Internet Thruway recognizes data calls based on called number and totally redirects them away from the originating switch before they reach the voice network. These calls are converted to packet data format, encapsulated in IP packets using industry-standard Layer-2 Forwarding (L2F) protocol for security, and sent to the appropriate ISP or corporate LAN over a frame relay or asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network. Voice calls proceed to the voice network over a standard TR 303 link, an open interface to central offices.