Yeah, this is a press release from a company doing testing, but it does raise interesting questions. We’ve all read the stories about the attempts by ISPs, etc to do tiered pricing and throttling. Is this a behind the scenes example of them doing it? Or is it the staggering increases in spam over the last couple of years?
Internet Phone Quality Drops Significantly And Steadily Over Last 18 Months
Nearly 20 percent of Internet telephone test calls experienced unacceptable call quality over the last 18 months, according to data collected from TestYourVoIP.com, Brix Networks’ free, voice quality testing portal that enables consumers to independently measure the quality of their broadband Internet phone connections.
[…]
“Over the last few years, the global market for consumer VoIP services has grown to nearly 20 million subscribers. These results from TestYourVoIP.com indicate that during this same period Internet call quality has declined,” said Kaynam Hedayat, vice president, engineering, and chief technology officer at Brix. “For long-term sustainability, providers of Internet phone services will need to concentrate on the root causes of call quality degradation, including late packet discards, lost packets, and round-trip voice latency.”
I use Skype. Running this test, I get 3.6 to 3.9 of a possible 5.0 — calling their North American numbers. Frankly, that’s better than the local phone system or my cell phone.
The only problems I have are when I’m trying to deal with a cheapo PBX that’s switching my call from Bangladesh to Toronto to Arkansas and back. Like DirecTV.
VoIP doesn’t run over the web, it’s on the internet. That’s like saying that Gopher can’t support VoIP calls.
Two words: traffic shaping http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_shaping.
“We’ve all read the stories about the attempts by ISPs, etc to do tiered pricing and throttling. Is this a behind the scenes example of them doing it? Or is it the staggering increases in spam over the last couple of years?”
Depends. Are the problems occuring with all Voip or just the non network provider ones, such as vonage and skype.
WELL,
I see a few problems.
1. there ISNT enough Bandpass, in the WHOLE system to manage ALL of us, doing EVERYTHING we want. Spam, and Bots are taking up a good 60+% of it, just to track WHO and where you go.
2. If the Telco’s DONT get what they want, they will slowly/serepticiously MAKE things happen.
The Telco’s dont want to update the Backbones. They dont want to update 40+ year old Relay stations. They WANT to lat us pay for a Hardware design thats been up for 40-60 years, with VERY little improvements.
Let me put it this way…Im in a RURAL area, and caller ID has been here about 5 years. How long has it been where YOU ARE. 10-15 years??
This is an automated system, and needs little power and NO human contact…How much you pay to have it?? $5 per month??
ADSL is being marketed in THIS area, at $30 amonth IF’ I purchase other options for my phone…ADD $40 to my phone and they will charge me $30 more for ADSL…. WHY should I be paying them $100 amonth for services that are over priced.
BECAUSE, they dont want to pay for something THAT SHOULD BE there requirement or should be pay’d by stock holders.
If a grocery store wanted to Enlarge their store, and raised prices 0.10 PER item, and I could find a better price, DO you think I would pay the 0.10 charge??
we can easily double the effective capacity of our existing internetwork infrastructure by banning porn.
“we can easily double the effective capacity of our existing internetwork infrastructure by banning porn.”
They why would even need an internet.
6,
NOT REALLY…They probably arnt THINING to well. As .01% of the net is porn.
Its the ADVERTS and bots that are swapped around that are 2/3’s of ALL data.
Email spam is a blip compared to streaming video – this is all about throttling voip, i.e. limiting its bandwidth and the problems that can cause for users
I know that my provider doesn’t throttle VOIP at all (even though they’re our monopoly telecoms company, mind u wait til they catch on….) and that is probably why I score a 4 to the Pacific West Coast from England… and having Skyped lots of people over there, I get a better call than I do across town using the traditional networks. I’m sure in those areas in the US where providers offer their own VOIP solution, Skype users get much worse performance than I do from 1000s of miles away
Oh, and look at the scatter graph in the article – errr, the line they’ve drawn through it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever – you can see that the quality is a consistent series of peaks and troughs – sorry but I don’t see a “consistent” downward trend there… someone needs to teach them about trend lines… :\
The web is unable to support VOIP? Ha ha. You really wrote that? Ha ha ha.
Not the web, its the Telco’s that cant handle it.
They installed a system based on SO much is running, at so time.
systems as little as 6% or less. They all got hit.
WE NEED a bigger and better backbone. i dont care if the Cell companies or cable does it.
I pay $25 / month for unlimited minutes through Vonage.
Comcast is offering an INTRODUCTORY rate of $33 per month.
Vonage competes with my provider, and charges much less…hmmm… what are the chances of Comcast actually allowing Vonage to exist?
I pay $50 per month for 3 megabite… But do I see it? NOPE.
I do speed checks and I can get it, but many of those hit ALL channels on the net, not 1 channel that most send data on and 90% of data is sent on that channel.
I setup a new install on a friends computer. they had MSN, so I hooked it up. AS SOON as I got to the front page, 5 virus and 17 bots were loaded. Its the adverts, they want to load trackers on your systems. And sites DONT care, its a service for adverts to rotate, and NO ONE checks the adverts for bots or virus…
Right now, there is probably 1-10 bots on EVERY system that cant be found. you REALLY notice them if you have dial up.
Lets not even touch what DRM’s and MS is doing… they are implementing a service(already tried it) for vista to send notice of your computer being on the net, and a Checksum.. If there are 3 different checksums for the same version/S# it will LOCK THEM UP.
They tried this with Gen. advantage…THEY had fun…
Two More Words: PRESS RELEASE (I know Uncle Dave you told us this already.)
Come on folks this load of spin casts “Brix Networks’ converged service assurance solutions” as the means to a better Test Score in a test they created. Do you remember your 3rd or 4th grade lesson about definitions? That you don’t use a word to define itself? This is classic PR FUD.
“Is this a behind the scenes example of them doing it?” I would say if Neutrality could become Biased these folks are trying to position them self in that market. Look at their partners it is a swag bag full of proprietary hardware and service providers who love to figure out ways to make you pay, and then give you some crappy mouse pad with their logo on it.
“TestYourVoIP.com, Brix Networks’ free, voice quality testing portal that enables consumers to independently measure the quality of their broadband Internet phone connections.” Can we all say “Doublespeak?” How are we independently testing if we are all using their test? Of course this is more free crap with their logo on it.
The idiocy of this whole model, of marketing and industrial strategy, is the high volume of wasted time, energy and effort. The money needs to be spent and we all need to contribute. But instead of truly going to infrastructure, which would really increase quality, availability, and real value, we are bucked to death by the comparatively cheep superficial bauble on the top. And that Bauble on top, like VOIP and IPTV, they change with progress made every day.
The determination of what is really of value here sucks! Are we being throttled? Yea, over the backs of our heads and when you wake up not only is your wallet empty, instead of being in your back pocket or purse or on the ground next to you, it will be hosted as a service on some server, and in the fine print of the service agreement you dont own your wallet any more or it’s contents. The terms of service are subject to change at any point during the term of the agreement which can be canceled at any time for violations of the terms of service.
Euphemistically, refraining from doing harm is sometimes called protection.
Lets do it the easy way…
How well do we rank in price and bandwidth to OTHER countries??
3rd, 4th, 5th???
WE SUCK!!!
they get 2 times the bandwidth, and cheaper in Britain..
the EU, makes us look like WIMPS.
Japan, is so far ahead, we will never catch up.
and an aside note. the gas companies made 10 billion last quarter in PROFIT.