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If you read only one VOIP this year…
September 20, 2004
Welcome to TNL.net. If you like this content, you may consider subscribing to the RSS feed.… let it be “The Voice over IP Insurrection”. It is a stunning study of how Voice Over Internet Protocol is currently reshaping the landscape in the communication world.
As a user of VoIP services through Vonage, I can say that the quality is there and the cost/benefit analysis shows the new technology to be extremely competitive. In my piece on the impact of the modular by design approach on telephony, I’ve mentioned the issues VoIP are highlighting for the telephony business. The question I did not really cover, however, is the potential power of the network for incumbent carriers.
Today, telcos are sitting on large networks that carry traffic for both telephone lines and the Internet. If incumbent telephone companies fail as a result of their existing phone business disappearing, what will happen to the level of support they offer to the underlying architecture of the Internet? Will they start crippling it as a way to fend off their competitors or will they divest themselves from the asset and let other people buy and administer it?
We currently take it on faith that the universal service fund will always be there to ensure that people get service, even though it may be more expensive to deliver it to their area than it would to others. Recent rulings have showed that VoIP being a service, it may not be eligible for payment into that fund. Should a fee then be levied for line usage? Such a change would increase the cost of data land lines but may ultimately be the way to go in order to protect the infrastructures.
