hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote in message
news:<telecom23.574.5@telecom-digest.org>:
> TELECOM Digest Editor <ptownson@massis.csail.mit.edu> wrote:
>> ... VOIP, which frankly, I believe is the telecom 'wave of the
>> future'.
> I hate to be a party pooper, it seems some basic questions remain to
> be answered about VOIP. Such as:
> 1) The mainstream press (plus my own experience) describe VOIP sound
> quality as _almost_ as good as a regular landline phone. When will it
> be 100% as good or better as landline 100% of the time?
> 2) The mainstream press says VOIP reliability still has a way to go,
> and is also dependent on the quality of the broadband connection one
> happens to be using. In data communications, it is very common to
> encounter "bunch-ups" when a lot of people just happen to hit their
> 'enter' key all at once; when this happens, there is a delay. For
> data transmission or internet use that is tolerable, but not on a
> voice conversation. It was like this in the early days of telephony
> when long distance lines were very limited and callers had to be
> queued for an available trunk. How and when will VOIP address this
> issue so that the reliability of VOIP is equal or better than landline
> 100% of the time?
> 3) The fact remains that VOIP usually needs the Baby Bells to deliver
> most of their calls. Despite what the FCC says, the Baby Bells are
> burdened with regulatory obligations, such as accomodating deadbeats
> and providing service to every location. I can't help but suspect the
> VOIP providers would not be interesting in running their cables or
> even providing service to high crime slum areas that the Baby Bells do
> support. Further, the Baby Bells have to have human service reps to
> handle customer complaints, ironically some coming from the
> possibility that VOIP providers failed to provide proper ANI and
> innundated customers with campaign calls (as recently described in
> this newsgroup).
> There have been some posts here recently complaining about long waits
> for service for some VOIP providers. It's one thing to be a novel new
> technology serving techo-geeks who can live with glitches. I suspect
> the high volume campaign callers didn't care if a percentage of calls
> failed to go through. But as the service expands into many people
> depending on the phone to make a living, such problems won't be
> tolerated. In my humble opinion, VOIP has a long way to go, further
> than its proponents recognize.
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So, there are a few shortomings still
> to be dealt with on VOIP. No one has ever claimed it was perfect;
> far from it. But the trade offs are worth considering. Like the
> Walmart versus the downtown store argument we had; some people may
> prefer its inexpensive cost and flexibilty over some of the
> traditional telecom 'advantages'. PAT]
becky (beckcham_5@hotmail.com)