--- "Jay R. Ashworth" <jra@baylink.com> wrote:
Companies like Vonage are signing up subscribers because they provide real phone service connecting you to copperline subscribers on the real phone network. That is
On Mon, Mar 07, 2005 at 04:03:11PM -0000, Neil J. McRae wrote: their business
model. Verizon could sell exactly the same sort of service to subscribers in California leveraging the Internet last mile in exactly the same way as Vonage. Vonage and Verizon are just phone companies, not VoIP companies.
Michael - you've been drinking way to much coffee today.
Naw; Michael has it exactly right, and more power to him.
I think the final nail in this coffin is the Vonage banner ad/masthead which describes them as "the broadband phone company." If they're going to claim to be a phone company, it's reasonable that phone company regulations regarding 911, outage reporting, etc should all apply to them. David Barak Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise: http://www.listentothefranchise.com NEW ALBUM, "The Sound and the Furry" available at http://www.cdbaby.com/thefranchise __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/
I think the final nail in this coffin is the Vonage banner ad/masthead which describes them as "the broadband phone company."
If they're going to claim to be a phone company, it's reasonable that phone company regulations regarding 911, outage reporting, etc should all apply to them.
But it's broadband! Shsssssh. It's an information service. It's IP. These are not the packets you're looking for. ;) What all this really shows is just how outdated the regulatory framework really is. Once VoIP (or whatever the application formerly known as VoIP) stops looking like a PSTN emulation, this will get only more absurd than it already is. So, what I'm saying is that it is silly to measure these issues by ill fitting frameworks. So, please, lets not force this emerging technology to look like PSTN even though it happens to right now. Does PSTN style outage reporting even make sense for a voice application? I think you can argue that it makes little operational sense nor provides much value for the consumer. IMHO, the real problem with 911 & VoIP isn't that VoIP breaks PSTN E911. It is that 911 has not evolved to deal with mobility and is so PSTN centric. Instead of evolving, we keep trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. There's a whole ball of wax of location aware services (driven by an end point and not the network) buried under it, not just E911. [One could argue Vonage etc are doing nobody a favor by looking so PSTN'ish.. ;) ] And we need to have a regulatory framework which encourages operators to evolve, rather than locking them into a managed economy. Regards, Christian PS: I only speak for myself, and I can't do jack squat about this silly legal disclaimer below. (Thanks Randy) ***** The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential, proprietary, and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from all computers. 117
On Thu, 10 Mar 2005, Christian Kuhtz wrote:
I think the final nail in this coffin is the Vonage banner ad/masthead which describes them as "the broadband phone company."
But it's broadband! Shsssssh. It's an information service. It's IP. These are not the packets you're looking for.
;)
What all this really shows is just how outdated the regulatory framework really is. Once VoIP (or whatever the application formerly known as VoIP) stops looking like a PSTN emulation, this will get only more absurd than it already is.
I disagree that the regulatory framework is outdated, but instead offer that the classification of IP networks has changed as new services have arisen, and been embraced by, the consumer. I don't purchase POTS service for my home. I have cable internet, and that's it. I don't even purchase cable TV service. Just a data feed. A la carte, I purchase VOIP service from whoever I want. It stops being a mere broadband information service the instant it connects to global PSTN. If a VOIP provider wants to avoid the label of telephony carrier, they should be strictly end-to-end service with no connection into the global PSTN infrastructure. An example of this would be enterprise internal phone systems, designed to propagate calls within a single corporate entity. They could then purchase PSTN connectivity, or VOIP access to such, from a company who IS labelled as a telephony carrier, if they want to accept and send calls to the outside world. This could something as small as a legal office running VOIP internally for phone system/contact management, call centers deploying pure IP networks for all internal services, or any other *end user*. If you're transiting VOIP traffic, intentionally because that's your product, or incidentally because you're an IP transit carrier and you've agreed to pass that traffic, you are, by definition if not by intent, a telephony carrier. This includes Vonage, as a VOIP<->PSTN gateway, and *each of the ISPs they connect to*, having agreed to sell them service. Propagate through peering agreements, et voila: The Internet is part of the global PSTN network. If there's anything that's going to kill VOIP as a viable consumer platform, it will be ISP/NSP unwillingness to fall under the telecomms regulatory structure. For companies with existing networks and peering agreements, it may very well be too late to change. VOIP has grown fast enough that customers will begin shifting in droves if ISPs start announcing they won't transit or support VOIP. The impact on revenue is significant enough, in my opinion, that CEOs, or shareholders, for that matter, won't be willing to give it up. - billn
If a VOIP provider wants to avoid the label of telephony carrier, they should be strictly end-to-end service with no connection into the global
PSTN infrastructure. An example of this would be enterprise internal phone systems, designed to propagate calls within a single corporate entity.
Other examples are the INOC-DBA service which many NANOG members use http://www.pch.net/inoc-dba/ And both SIPPhone http://www.sipphone.com and Free World Dialup http://www.pulver.com/fwd/ have been operating in a similar way for a couple of years. These last two are now expanding by also offering PSTN connectivity, but they are rooted in a non-PSTN VoIP service. Many groups are setting up their own similar systems based on the ready availability of SIP compatible phones and PBX software like Asterisk http://www.asterisk.org. The Internet is fundamentally a network of IP routers. The PSTN is fundamentally a network of voice switches. A PBX is a small voice switch. Asterisk is software that provides PBX functionality on a UNIX PC therefore using Asterisk and the Internet, anyone can build their own network of voice switches for whatever purpose they want. I'm surprised there are not more smaller PC's offering this as some kind of an add-on service. Once you have a sizeable customer base using always-on broadband, why not help your customers set up always-on voice services. Of course in the absence of such support from ISPs, there is a vacuum which Skype is attempting to fill using non-standard software. --Michael Dillon
participants (4)
-
Bill Nash -
Christian Kuhtz -
David Barak -
Michael.Dillon＠radianz.com