Voip must have the big telcos shaking in their boots

[Michael C]

It's so easy to get voip running, anyone with broadband can just buy a voip
box, plug it in and away they go. Cheap calls all over the world, cheap line
rental, no long distance calls within the country of origin and free calls
to other voip users. It's not going to be long before everyone's on voip
making free calls all over the world to each other and the big telcos are
out of business. Well, I'm probably exaggerating how easy it is to setup but
it is pretty easy. I had to brush up on a few simple concepts such as
ethernet, routers, modems, IP addresses, DHCP, ports, port forwarding, UDP,
TCP, DNS Servers, gateways, firewalls, SIP numbers, SIP protocols and NAT
but once I worked all that out it was easy. In my case I had a small amount
of extra trouble because the provider I chose didn't support the hardware I
had but it only took 3 days to work that out. Once I got on to the second
provider it worked great, well, 3rd really because the second was just a
reseller for the first but once I got that sorted out it worked great. Well
that's not entirely true, my router wasn't up to the task as it didn't have
QoS so I had to search around for a router with QoS. Although they seemed to
be quite rare I managed to find one in the DLink gaming router. The only
minor problem I had there was that in DLink's wisdom they'd renamed QoS to
"Game Fuel" but once I worked that out everything was peachy. All peachy
except that my cable connection kept dropping out and I had to argue with
the isp to get them to come out and fix it but eventually they did and it's
working great now. Except when I'm uploading lots of data or when other
people in the area are doing big downloads it can break up. And occasionally
I have to reset the voip box because it won't receive calls but besides
those minor glitches it's working great some of the time. Yes siree, those
big telcos must really be crapping themselves ;-)

 

[Paul]

Yes siree, those big telcos must really be crapping themselves ;-)

"Phone, Cable Firms Rein In Consumers' Internet Use"
http://webreprints.djreprints.com/1341970908457.html

Not all markets are shaking quite the same way. Consider the
poor suckers here. Any country with monopoly control over
communications, can do this.

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000083043986
http://www.freepress.net/news/7035

Enjoy your "free lunch" for the time being, until someone
figures a way to steal it from you All it would take
is a local monopoly and some filtering technology.

I expect in the future, the bill from your ISP will look like
this Just a little consumer paranoia for you...

Your local ISP - December bill:

Normal data traffic (web surfing): $0.01 per megabyte
Video streaming/download: $0.10 per megabyte
Phone service: $1.00 per megabyte

Paul

 

[Ian East]

"Phone, Cable Firms Rein In Consumers' Internet Use"
http://webreprints.djreprints.com/1341970908457.html

Not all markets are shaking quite the same way. Consider the
poor suckers here. Any country with monopoly control over
communications, can do this.

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000083043986
http://www.freepress.net/news/7035

Enjoy your "free lunch" for the time being, until someone
figures a way to steal it from you All it would take
is a local monopoly and some filtering technology.

I expect in the future, the bill from your ISP will look like
this Just a little consumer paranoia for you...

Your local ISP - December bill:

Normal data traffic (web surfing): $0.01 per megabyte
Video streaming/download: $0.10 per megabyte
Phone service: $1.00 per megabyte

Paul

Doubt it. Even if they did it would be short lived. They'd just
start encrypting the traffic so there's no way the ISP can tell what
it is.

 

[Michael C]

Enjoy your "free lunch" for the time being, until someone
figures a way to steal it from you All it would take
is a local monopoly and some filtering technology.

Seems to be just another disadvantage of voip. It's difficult enough to get
working and unreliable enough without the isps making it more difficult.

Michael

 

[Paul]

Doubt it. Even if they did it would be short lived. They'd just
start encrypting the traffic so there's no way the ISP can tell what
it is.

Wouldn't the various parts of a VOIP session, be on well
known ports ? At least initially, all they would have to
do, is close the port used for call setup, to gum up the works.

I don't deny that the technically savvy could find ways around it.
Even without encryption, you could use steganography (hide the
phone conversation in a video download, for example), and perhaps
change the protocol to all take place on some other well known
port number. Or set up a VPN with the recipient. It would be
tougher for devices that are hardware ohly, and designed to
standards, as they may not have quite as many options as would
be available to a computer user.

It is probably pretty easy to stop one of these:
http://www.teletronics.com/voipphone.html

Paul

 

[HankG]

<mostly snipped>

Yes siree, those big telcos must really be crapping themselves ;-)

I'm not looking for "free" service, just quality service at a fair price.
Here in New Jersey, the cable companies (now Comcast) have/will enjoy a
monopoly for 30 years. While the service has been quite good overall, we
can usually look forward to hefty rate increases. We're looking forward to
a 6% increase (well above inflation) come the first of the year.

Recently, Verizon has begun construction of fiber-optic networks in selected
areas (mine is currently under construction; eventually all areas will be
included). Their plan is to run fiber to the premises (not just to the
distribution point at the end of the block).

Initially, they will provide our (current) phone service and high speed
internet via fiber. There is a regulatory battle (via the media) going on
to allow Verizon to provide traditional 'cable' programming as well. There
web site indicates a relatively low price for comparable (or better) service
than we are currently receiving.

Now, is Comcast craping itself? I doubt it. But they certainly are aware
of the situation. They have increased up/down speed twice within the last
year or so. They are constantly providing new 'goodies' (all free of
course).

We'll just have to wait, so "let the games begin".

HankG

 

[Paul]

<mostly snipped>

Yes siree, those big telcos must really be crapping themselves ;-)

I'm not looking for "free" service, just quality service at a fair price.
Here in New Jersey, the cable companies (now Comcast) have/will enjoy a
monopoly for 30 years. While the service has been quite good overall, we
can usually look forward to hefty rate increases. We're looking forward to
a 6% increase (well above inflation) come the first of the year.

Recently, Verizon has begun construction of fiber-optic networks in selected
areas (mine is currently under construction; eventually all areas will be
included). Their plan is to run fiber to the premises (not just to the
distribution point at the end of the block).

Initially, they will provide our (current) phone service and high speed
internet via fiber. There is a regulatory battle (via the media) going on
to allow Verizon to provide traditional 'cable' programming as well. There
web site indicates a relatively low price for comparable (or better) service
than we are currently receiving.

Now, is Comcast craping itself? I doubt it. But they certainly are aware
of the situation. They have increased up/down speed twice within the last
year or so. They are constantly providing new 'goodies' (all free of
course).

We'll just have to wait, so "let the games begin".

HankG

Competition is what makes it possible. Not that many years ago,
there was a paper from a university, where it was claimed the
ratio between the price charged versus the cost of providing
data transmission, was 50:1 . At that time, buying a T1 (1.5Mbps)
cost a small fortune, and the company I worked for, could only
afford 1/4 of a T1 to support a _lot_ of employees. Now, many
homes with cable modem or ADSL modem, get the data rates we
could only dream about. Competition is what drained the "fat"
from the system, and dropped that ratio from its former 50:1
value.

That is why it is important not to kill off any sector of the
industry, so competition will continue to work its magic.
In the fullness of time, all competitors should be able to
offer the same services, but allowing that to happen prematurely,
could kill some of them off.

The other factor to be concerned about, when choosing a phone
solution, is lifeline services. Does your 911 service work
every time you use it ? For example, in my area, the last
time there was a major power outage (for a week), there was
no cell phone service, because the towers didn't have backup
generators. Now, I'll bet most of them do. One of the features
of the old copper based phone system, is the extensive use
of backup power sources. Any service that replaces it, should
have the same capabilities, so 911 is there when you need it.
I expect it will be a while, before any old implementation
of VOIP can be found working when the power goes off for a
week.

Paul