hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote in message
news:<telecom23.574.5@telecom-digest.org>:
> TELECOM Digest Editor <ptownson@massis.csail.mit.edu> wrote:
>> ... VOIP, which frankly, I believe is the telecom 'wave of the
>> future'.
> I hate to be a party pooper, it seems some basic questions remain to
> be answered about VOIP. Such as:
> 1) The mainstream press (plus my own experience) describe VOIP sound
> quality as _almost_ as good as a regular landline phone. When will it
> be 100% as good or better as landline 100% of the time?
> 2) The mainstream press says VOIP reliability still has a way to go,
> and is also dependent on the quality of the broadband connection one
> happens to be using. In data communications, it is very common to
> encounter "bunch-ups" when a lot of people just happen to hit their
> 'enter' key all at once; when this happens, there is a delay. For
> data transmission or internet use that is tolerable, but not on a
> voice conversation. It was like this in the early days of telephony
> when long distance lines were very limited and callers had to be
> queued for an available trunk. How and when will VOIP address this
> issue so that the reliability of VOIP is equal or better than landline
> 100% of the time?
> 3) The fact remains that VOIP usually needs the Baby Bells to deliver
> most of their calls. Despite what the FCC says, the Baby Bells are
> burdened with regulatory obligations, such as accomodating deadbeats
> and providing service to every location. I can't help but suspect the
> VOIP providers would not be interesting in running their cables or
> even providing service to high crime slum areas that the Baby Bells do
> support. Further, the Baby Bells have to have human service reps to
> handle customer complaints, ironically some coming from the
> possibility that VOIP providers failed to provide proper ANI and
> innundated customers with campaign calls (as recently described in
> this newsgroup).
> There have been some posts here recently complaining about long waits
> for service for some VOIP providers. It's one thing to be a novel new
> technology serving techo-geeks who can live with glitches. I suspect
> the high volume campaign callers didn't care if a percentage of calls
> failed to go through. But as the service expands into many people
> depending on the phone to make a living, such problems won't be
> tolerated. In my humble opinion, VOIP has a long way to go, further
> than its proponents recognize.
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So, there are a few shortomings still
> to be dealt with on VOIP. No one has ever claimed it was perfect;
> far from it. But the trade offs are worth considering. Like the
> Walmart versus the downtown store argument we had; some people may
> prefer its inexpensive cost and flexibilty over some of the
> traditional telecom 'advantages'. PAT]
We recently switched over and got Voip and got rid of our land line.
So far we are pleased and would really never know the difference in
quality. We haven't gotten our first phone bill yet, but I'm sure
I'll be much happier with this one as I have my previous bills. One
of the best things about voip: the cost. I don't know a whole lot
about all the ins and outs of the voice mail and the features on the
web site, but it seems to all be working fine. We rely on our phone
to call family and friends, and so far we have had no problems doing
that, so we're happy.
becky (beckcham_5@hotmail.com)