Do-It-Yourself VOIP Telco 246
DamnYankee writes "Robert X. Cringley predicts the coming demise of the landline telco monopolies from the grassroots encroachment of VoIP and Linux on the latest generation of Wifi routers. According to Bob, 'The result is a system with economics with which a traditional local phone company simply can't compete'. With Linux capabilities and builtin VoIP any Mom and Pop can become the local equivalent of a cellular phone company for the price of $79 Wifi router. Now how is Verizon going to compete with that? Get the full scoop from the man himself."
not gonna happen, the lobbies are too powerful (Score:5, Insightful)
He mentions that the mobile phone markets were a "disruptive technology" against the 125 year old wired telephone business. The single thing he fails to recognize is that the wired phone companies have the largest stakes in the best wireless networks out there (AT&T/Cingular, Verizon, etc).
He then glazes over the billing possibilities as you jump from router to router. We aren't talking about a cell phone here. We are talking about the possibility of a wireless card in a pocketPC to be used as a phone. It's a bit harder for Joe Blow to get a hacked/stolen SIM card for his phone. It's not quite as hard to get a software program that doesn't give billing information that is tracked back to that "phone" user.
Verizon will compete... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ahem... (Score:5, Insightful)
(and, yes, I did RTFA)
Let's face it: if the big telcos aren't dead by now, this means they are not going to die anytime soon. I doubt Verizon is quaking in its boots right now...
I see this (Score:3, Insightful)
so whats stopping the big guys? (Score:3, Insightful)
if they get it cheap then they can setup quickly, and still gouge you for the profit.
Questions... (Score:3, Insightful)
Are we just talking about a segment of the market or what? I don't know all that much about the telco industry, but it has always been my impression that data lines shadow voice lines and are owned and maintained by the same parties. Is that not the case, or is my info wrong? Are there significant data networks in this country that are not in some way owned by or related to major telcos?
To this extent are we talking about big players really going out of business, or there simply being a shift in the market whereby the telcos morph into the owners and maintainers of the backbone and little VoIP carriers pop up at the edges. Then how long will it take for consolidation to cull these little ones to the point where we once again have new telco monopoly, but over a different style of infrastructure.
Re:not gonna happen, the lobbies are too powerful (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now, Intel, TI and Motorola (among others) are working furiously on WiFi/VoIP roaming for their cellular chips. Once such a device is developed and, most importantly, perfected, it is only a matter of time before the PSTN falls into a state of unsustainability. The PSTN (public, switched telephone network) is bulky - requiring about 40 - 60 percent more cost to operate than a typical packet-switching network like the internet.
However, I shudder when I say "perfected". Like many other technologies, the *theory* will always seem great while everyone will count on someone else for the execution. Currently, there is no system in place for VoIP users to adequately call each other using non-PSTN based dialing. Certainly, we could all start using dynamic DNS based services but without a centralized, non-greedy institution for creation and allocation, it will be a big fat mess that nobody will want to touch.
I agree that VoIP should be charged telecom taxes BUT ONLY WHEN THE USER INTERFACES WITH THE PSTN. Right now, that is just about every call, aside from the few geeks who are dialing with IP. And that brings up another problem - who's gonna stop spammers from dialing my VoIP phone from China for the sake of playing a pre-recorded advertisement in my ear?
I prefer telephones that work (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:big companies CAN change (Score:3, Insightful)
But having realised its oversight, even Microsoft relied on getting a product out of the door instead of running to the lawyers to protect it. The entrenched telcos seem far more like the RIAA/MPAA to me; they have this new fangled competitor looming on the horizon and instead of pouring money into R&D are pouring it into the legal department and campaign contributions instead. Only time will tell of course, but I'm not betting on either set of dinosaurs.
VoIP to Where? (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps if everyone had a 1500Mbps SDSL line and the whole network was load balanced, it would work, but this will never be able to beat the convenience of my 100g polycarbonate phone in my pocket, which can call anyone, anywhere, without any bandwidth limits.
They will be subject to rules, taxation & phys (Score:3, Insightful)
Won't happen; the Infra support is not there (Score:3, Insightful)
Voice networks are overlooked already. (Score:4, Insightful)
I would hazard to say that many companies voice networks are just as vulnerable as their data networks, or even moreso, but they are not targetted as much, so they do not get as much attention.
What about emergency services? (Score:5, Insightful)
You might say to me, "well, people today use cellphones as their primary means of communications - and they are responsible to ensure it is charged up in the event of an emergency". That may be true. However, everyone does not have cell phone service - or wants cell phone service for that matter. As a common carrier, phone companies have a responsibility to provide dialtone for everyone who wants it - and as a result provide emergency services.
It is also prohibitively costly to provide fibre to every location - particularly in rural areas. Given that, broadband service will not be available to drive VOIP solutions.
If we decide to drop copper as an alternative, then we will lose big when some event occurs that prevents a VOIP user from getting a critical emergency call through - and the resulting lawsuits and regulations will stifle growth and acceptance of VOIP as a viable universal solution.
Thanks, but no thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
Deja Vu ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm does anyone else here remember the Sears/Gap/Borders are dead stories from around 1998/99 because the Mom and Pop stores would beat them thanks to ".com".
I've read the article and I'm not seeing anything different, and certainly nothing that thinks about the realities of providing secure 911 access and QoS over a WiFi router and ADSL.
Re:Verizon will compete... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, when any of the following issues occur to the FREE or modest fee VOIP/WIFI provider, well meaning people/small businesses of modest means will give pause when considering wehter to provide these services:
* someone cant be reached in an "emergency" so the provider is sued
* a "service disruption" is deemed unaceptable and the provider is sued
* the VOIP/WIFI is hacked for phun
* someone and/or some business/organization, (ab)uses the VOIP/WIFI to spam/troll/hack a major telco/consumer/business/gov't agency and gets sued.
* insert your ignorant/money-grubbing/just plain wierd lawsuit here.
Like that old saying goes: No Good deed Goes unpunished.
Re:Questions... (Score:3, Insightful)
Aren't VOIP carriers actually piggy backing on resources provided by the voice carriers in the first place?
If you're using DSL from your phoneco then sure. You have to remember that VoIP goes all over IP. You don't need expensive (and proprietary) TelCo analog switching equipment, just the bandwidth capacity to carry the voice traffic.
If I worked for a manufacturer of the old POTS switching equipment, I'd be getting ready to look for a new job in a few years. Unless moving to the third world to support their legacy stuff is your cup of tea.
Baptists? (Score:2, Insightful)
VOIP? (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with this is that a big ISP buys $500,000 Cisco routers to keep the internet flowing. If you think a bunch of $70 wireless routers (even $500,000 worth) is going to replace a mega-router, you're kidding yourself.
Our goal here should be to create reliable grassroots networks. I have phone service because if I need to call 911, I NEED to call 911, whether my neighbor accidentally kicked the wall blister of his router out of the wall socket or not. I've got no love for Telcos, but I do like their reliability.
Comcast doesn't like a mailsever running... (Score:3, Insightful)
A few things have to change - Comcast and their ilk have to change what they allow or else they'll have more traffic than they can dream of.
I believe they don't like people actually using the bandwidth they paid for, so that needs rethinking.
Re:not gonna happen, the lobbies are too powerful (Score:2, Insightful)
Damn straight. Ever had someone's life depending on a 911 call getting through? It'll be a long time before I rely on VoIP for that.
The PSTN is bulky because it's reliable and backward-compible. It stays up when the power goes down, and you can make a call from your new VoIP service to some guy with a tin can at the end of a string in the middle of the desert. It's amazing. Don't knock it.
Correct me if I am wrong ... (Score:3, Insightful)
But surely one of the major fuctions of a phone is that people can wring you.
How is anyone going to find my phone with a roaming v/ip setup?
Are all those little 400 mz processors with no disks going to implement a CDMA/GSM type roaming protocol? (Phone contacts local base station, via several hops contacts your CDMA/GSM provider and tells it, plus the FBI CIA etc., where your phone is so your calls can be routed to the right base station).
Re:The gov't will screw 'em... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure VoIP looks cheaper to us right now, but PSTN would be cheaper if they weren't regulated so much too. VoIP has an unfair advantage right now because it's not being regulated. It's not a matter of regulating the hell out of VoIP because PSTN has friends in the gov't, it's a matter of applying the same regulations to VoIP that PSTN has seen for years.
Next thing you know AIM will be ruled a telephone company because of the "talk" feature.
Are you suggesting that VoIP companies shouldn't be considered telephone companies?
It's not an either/or choice (Cellular vs. Wifi) (Score:3, Insightful)
Even the mobile phone manufacturers are picking up [cnn.com] on this trend. By building Wifi into mobile phones we can set the device to use the lowest cost method to make our calls. When a hotpsot is available, use VoIP and drop the cost to next to nothing. Simple economics.
This is not to say the technical hurdles aren't formidable. But hey, my Grandpa publishes web pages and who could've sold me on that concept in 1994?
Re:Two Words... (Score:3, Insightful)
Except that the number of payphones has been declining [usatoday.com] for the past several years and nothing's going to stop that anytime soon.
Not to mention in rural and suburban areas, where the nearest payphone can be a good walk or even further away...
Besides, wasn't there a movie [dmoz.org] recently about the last payphone in Manhattan?
Competition (Score:4, Insightful)
You see there are these things that companies buy called laws....
Jaysyn
Re:The gov't will screw 'em... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I see this (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean businesses make decisions on what they think they can convince us to buy. Sometimes it works, sometimes we want to buy something else. When cars that run on alternative fuels and the alternative fuel itself costs less than gasoline and gas powered cars, we'll be happy to buy them and it.
Re:not gonna happen, the lobbies are too powerful (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:not gonna happen, the lobbies are too powerful (Score:3, Insightful)
Since the router is 23W and a 12VDC power supply, a cheap deep-cycle marine battery could be rigged up without too much trouble and provide two full days of backup. With the charger and everything, it might run an extra $120 total. This should get you well under 8 hours of downtime per year if done right, which puts you at three nines. (If you do a better job on the DC system, you might be able to get four nines.)
With even just 10-20% of the nodes having three nines, maintaining network reliability of five nines is trivial.
On a network level, if diversity is maintained between edge uplinks (cable, dsl, maybe even a T1 here and there) keeping those five nines shouldn't be too hard.
The biggest challenge keeps coming back to getting the uplinks to be sufficiently redundant and unencumbered with TOS restrictions.