As I wrote in a later message, that's more along the lines of what I was talking about. :-) Cheers, - ferg -- "Stephen Sprunk" <stephen@sprunk.org> wrote:

I think you just tossed a red herring into the discussion. :-)

I would suggest that a semi-intelligent playback bufferring scheme in the VoIP application, plus a 'semi-lossless' link, would be just fine. ;-)

Any competent VoIP application/device developer will use an adaptive jitter buffer. It's really not that tough, and most apps/devices have them today because working products sell better than non-working ones. My VoIP phone (full disclosure: I work for the vendor) operates just fine at home over a DSL line, across four ISPs, through two NATs, and to a gateway in Canada. The voice gets a little choppy when a 10MB powerpoint hits my Inbox (sadly, several times per day), but it self-corrects after a couple seconds.

Doesn't anyone really remember the whole smart-v.-stupid network analogy? Not meaning to start a flame war here, but trying to stick all of the intelligence back into the network is not exactly a win-win proposal.

I think you'll get further by arguing that intelligent networks with small pipes cost more to maintain than dumb networks with fat pipes. Less likely to induce sleep in your bean-counters. S Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking