File these lawsuits and get me coffee
CommsDesign – FCC commissioners agree on inter-state nature of VoIP Good and bad news. Watch more and more of these stories to appear as phonecos do what they can to stop this technology.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reached broad consensus Tuesday (Nov. 9) on the nature of voice-over-IP (VoIP) as an inter-state service, cutting short the state of Minnesota’s efforts to impose intra-state regulations on Vonage Holdings Corp. However, Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps cautioned not to read too much into this finding, as fundamental issues of universal service under a VoIP environment have yet to be addressed.
Nevertheless, FCC Chairman Michael Powell made clear that the ability to personalize service and get far cheaper voice service in a VoIP environment will be a revolutionary advance in voice telephony. The FCC made explicit in its ruling that “this Commission, not the state commissions, has the responsibility and obligation to decide whether certain regulations apply to IP-enabled services. The Commission has the power to preempt state regulations that thwart or impede federal authority over interstate commissions.”
Greenback pie is about to be shared.
Tax more tax seem to be in someones future.
I use Vonage at home now, but I fear for the future of voice call quality. I get lots of hiccups, pops, sputters, and other anomolies in my connection. It’s actually quite bad. I blame the fact that I cannot plug my VoIP box directly into our broadband connection (acting as a bridge between home network), thus granting priority to voice traffic.
But the inherent weakness is in IP itself. Unless the switchover to IPv6 is made, or some other protocol for specifying quality of service (which IPv6 has, right? or is it just 64 bit), packets will arrive at whatever speed they feel like, and a clean connection will be a matter of chance.
T.C., I think your 1st analysis is correct. It’s the connection. I chat regularly with a buddy on the other side of the country — who recently switched over to Vonage. While I can detect the slightest occasional anomoly, it’s still better than the usual cruddy phone line performance, here in New Mexico. We joke, here, that the phones stop working if it rains somewhere in the state.
As soon as Vonage [or some other VOIP provider with comparable rates] figures out how to retain existing phone numbers in NM, I will likely be jumping ship.
re: quality of connections
comment: remember Moore’s Law
The only limit on voice quality over the Internet is the demand exhibited for quality. The only reason more people don’ t have faster connections is because there isn’t a focused demand. (focused demand: somebody who understands how to snatch a whole lot of cash by giving people what they want, see ‘entrepreneur’)
If you keep asking for it, and enough people pay for it as it appears, you’ll get it.
URL email: “-“
In my case, the connection may be the issue, but I think my technical point about using IP for voice (and other time-sensitive) traffic is valid.
How is this rush to IP for all our data needs going to scale up, when an FTP download has the same priority as my phone call to 911?
As far as “-“‘s comments go, my problems have nothing to do with the speed of the connection. I have a 5 Mbps connection to the Internet at home, because the owner of my house happens to run a wireless ISP (unwiredltd.com) from the local hilltop (Grizzly Peak). Web pages come up faster at home than at work.
I was amazed to discover that a Vonage box and other VoIP boxes only use about 19.6 kbps per voice connection. But when packets in that stream are held up at MAE-West or rerouted through Atlanta, it sounds like I’m calling from the Moon.
Using the current Internet for time-sensitive, point-to-point streaming connections will not scale.