VoIP - 1st Quarter 2006
Greetings.
Thanks to all of you that responded to the last newsletter about Search Engines. It is clearly an important topic. Recently, I’ve had several calls about Voice over IP. So we are devoting this ClearPoint to giving an overview of VoIP. If you have another topic that you would like us to cover, please give me a call (770-614-8728) or drop me an email (nb@clearbuilt.com).
Look for another website update for www.clearbuilt.com in the coming months.
Neal
Step Aside Phone Company
. . . there’s a new kid in town
The last mile
The local phone companies control the physical phone line (typically copper) that comes from the street to your house or business (the ‘last mile’). The last mile is like the Berlin wall dividing those companies wishing to compete with the phone companies from the phone company’s customers. It is the single most important aspect to the monopoly of the phone companies and has stood tall…until now.
It is true that in the past couple of decades the cable companies posed a serious threat to the integrity of the wall. However, let us not forget we are talking about the cable companies. They are incapable of innovating and providing the necessary customer service to breach the security of that last mile barrier. They are too busy competing with satellite TV and campaigning against all of those hardened criminals undermining all that is good in the world by ’stealing’ cable.
Other threats to the wall certainly exist. Satellite phones have the intriguing allure of having one phone that will work anywhere on earth with access to the sky. However, they have proven too expensive and finicky to make us give up our landline phones. The obvious contenders that have landed a serious blow are the cell phone companies. While it is true that they have weakened the last mile barrier, they do not significantly impact the corporate world that still relies on the copper.
Well, we all know the Berlin wall eventually came down and so to will the last mile barrier. Not by the hands of the people, but by the choice of Internet voice communications enabled by our faster and faster Internet connections to our homes and offices. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) will free us all.
 Voice over IP
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YES, VoIP is FREE:
Internet voice communications is absolutely free to anybody with a decently fast Internet connection. This includes cable, DSL, satellite, and more. Basically anything but dial-up. All you need is a computer, microphone, and speaker or headphones. You can then establish voice communications with anybody on the Internet that are able to meet these equipment and speed requirements. Some progressive phone manufacturers are making computers that look and function like feature-rich phones and can hook up to your network that are really just a small computer with a microphone and speaker built into the handset.
The Good News About VoIP
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NO, VoIP is not FREE:
If you want to speak with somebody that is still suffering on the Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS), then you will need to pay for access to that phone customer. There are plenty of companies to choose from that provide that service. You use the VoIP service companies to route your call over the Internet to somewhere geographically close to your destination and then send it the rest of the way over the normal telephone wires.
The Good News About VoIP Service
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Let’s Recap
As long as you have a sufficient Internet connection and the required equipment, then VoIP is free. You can talk to a friend in another country or communicate with your remote offices. If you have a friend or client that is not using the Internet for voice communications, then you must pay in order to gain access to the POTS.
The Bad News
Dialing 911 can be a problem. The telephone companies automatically route 911 calls to the correct emergency response center (of which there are over 3000 in U.S.) and provide the center with the location of the caller. There are some attempts to solve this problem by VoIP service providers. However, they are not as perfected as the wired telephone system. The true integration of the E911 (Enhanced 911) service with VoIP providers requires a lot of cooperation from the existing phone companies. You can imagine why things aren’t moving quickly. The cell phone companies also suffer from the same issues, but the federal government is requiring them to come up with a solution. The same is not yet true for VoIP providers.
The other potential issue is that if your network connection goes down, then so does your voice communications.
| VoIP Reviews
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What Now?
How will the cable companies respond? They’ll run their own VoIP service. That may sound like a great idea, but consider the following.
In the rumors and paranoia department, word has it that some cable companies are blocking or degrading competing VoIP services. So if, for instance, you get your Internet connection via cable through Comcast and are using Vonage for your VoIP phone service, then Comcast might deliver the Vonage information more slowly than normal in hopes that you would switch to the Comcast VoIP service.
If you can’t convince them, confuse them.
– Harry S. Truman
How will the phone companies respond? My guess is they’ll follow Harry S. Truman’s advice. But we now know they are just running scared. Their precious wall has been breached.
Filed by nb on March 17th, 2006 under ClearPoint
