Why haven't telcos moved to SIP/VOIP for home service?
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@Dashrender said:
@coliver said:
@Dashrender said:
The same question applies to Cell Phones as well! It's time to kill the whole phone number thing and move to a modern communication system that allows free calls to whomever, where ever, assuming the other side has internet access.
You would still pay for bandwidth? I know the cost of bandwidth is minimal but it still costs money to keep the power, cooling, and servers running. Not to mention the tons of corporate bureaucracy that goes along with it.
oh, it's not about cost savings, not specifically anyways. It's about global connections without the need for overlay that the phone system is today. Frankly, I'm guessing for the most part, that all calling moves across the same or similar pipes that the internet uses. If they got rid of legacy phone switches, and move those communication lines over to IP lines (assuming it could be done) the complexity of their networks could probably drop significantly. Saving them TONS of money.
For sake of argument I'll just pick Skype. If all of the carriers moved over to using Skype as the backbone for connecting calls - this transition could be made over time. Skype does currently support VOIP calling to POTS lines. As a carrier moved away from actual analog lines (or fake analog like most have today aka voip to analog converters) the carrier to assign a Skype ID to a home, at the same time allowing everyone in the home to have their own skype ID created so it is all personalized.
The question then becomes, can the carrier charge for this or are they just giving up the 20-50 a month fee for the phoneline that they charge today?
You get charged 20-50$? That seems like a lot.
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@Dashrender said:
Frankly, I'm guessing for the most part, that all calling moves across the same or similar pipes that the internet uses.
911 paths are required to be analog still.
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@coliver said:
You get charged 20-50$? That seems like a lot.
I pulled that number from other people posting on here in the past.
Before I cut my phone portion of my bill down to $12/month (unlimited incoming, 100 min outgoing) I was paying $32 a month for unlimited in/out calling and caller ID/Call waiting/call waiting ID, On Screen Caller ID.
You don't know how much you miss onscreen Caller ID until you get rid of it.. (what weird is that I still get caller ID on the phone itself.)
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@Jason said:
@Dashrender said:
Frankly, I'm guessing for the most part, that all calling moves across the same or similar pipes that the internet uses.
911 paths are required to be analog still.
for home users? and what about those that don't have land lines?
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@Dashrender said:
@Jason said:
@Dashrender said:
Frankly, I'm guessing for the most part, that all calling moves across the same or similar pipes that the internet uses.
911 paths are required to be analog still.
for home users? and what about those that don't have land lines?
No, I think strictly for businesses.
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@Dashrender said:
@Jason said:
@Dashrender said:
Frankly, I'm guessing for the most part, that all calling moves across the same or similar pipes that the internet uses.
911 paths are required to be analog still.
for home users? and what about those that don't have land lines?
Still on the telecom side has to be analog.
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@Dashrender said:
@coliver said:
You get charged 20-50$? That seems like a lot.
I pulled that number from other people posting on here in the past.
Before I cut my phone portion of my bill down to $12/month (unlimited incoming, 100 min outgoing) I was paying $32 a month for unlimited in/out calling and caller ID/Call waiting/call waiting ID, On Screen Caller ID.
You don't know how much you miss onscreen Caller ID until you get rid of it.. (what weird is that I still get caller ID on the phone itself.)
Setup a PBX and port your number over to a SIP trunk. Free caller ID with OpenCNAM. It works pretty well too.
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@Jason said:
@Dashrender said:
@Jason said:
@Dashrender said:
Frankly, I'm guessing for the most part, that all calling moves across the same or similar pipes that the internet uses.
911 paths are required to be analog still.
for home users? and what about those that don't have land lines?
Still on the telecom side has to be analog.
I didn't know that.
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@coliver said:
@Dashrender said:
@Jason said:
@Dashrender said:
Frankly, I'm guessing for the most part, that all calling moves across the same or similar pipes that the internet uses.
911 paths are required to be analog still.
for home users? and what about those that don't have land lines?
No, I think strictly for businesses.
Definitely not the case here. We have SIP only now. analog not required at my office.
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@Dashrender said:
@coliver said:
@Dashrender said:
@Jason said:
@Dashrender said:
Frankly, I'm guessing for the most part, that all calling moves across the same or similar pipes that the internet uses.
911 paths are required to be analog still.
for home users? and what about those that don't have land lines?
No, I think strictly for businesses.
Definitely not the case here. We have SIP only now. analog not required at my office.
You may want to look into that. I was pretty sure it was an FCC requirement. If you have an analog fax line you're covered.
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@coliver said:
@Dashrender said:
@coliver said:
@Dashrender said:
@Jason said:
@Dashrender said:
Frankly, I'm guessing for the most part, that all calling moves across the same or similar pipes that the internet uses.
911 paths are required to be analog still.
for home users? and what about those that don't have land lines?
No, I think strictly for businesses.
Definitely not the case here. We have SIP only now. analog not required at my office.
You may want to look into that. I was pretty sure it was an FCC requirement. If you have an analog fax line you're covered.
Huh - who would ever look into this? I have e-911 on the SIP trunks. The trunks are provided by the same provider that provided my previous PRI. I would think if this was a federal mandate, that the phone companies would be making sure customers are continuing to keep this requirement.
Also, I do have a fax line, 3 actually, but they aren't copper either. They go through Cox's VOIP to analog conversion.
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@Dashrender said:
Huh - who would ever look into this? I have e-911 on the SIP trunks.
You can't have true e911 on anything but cell phones. They call it E911 but really it's just the adddress tied to the phone number.
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@coliver said:
You may want to look into that. I was pretty sure it was an FCC requirement. If you have an analog fax line you're covered.
No requirement by the FCC, some localities do. The Requirement is solely for the telecom company to use analog to the PSAP.
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@Jason said:
@coliver said:
You may want to look into that. I was pretty sure it was an FCC requirement. If you have an analog fax line you're covered.
No requirement by the FCC, some localities do. The Requirement is solely for the telecom company to use analog to the PSAP.
Is that a federal requirement or a local one?
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As others have mentioned a lot of them have. I use Vonage, which makes it easy when I move to a new location. Just plug it in and go. Plus Vonage offers some cheap or free dialing to other countries, such as Australia, which makes it attractive for me since my dad lives there.
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@Nic said:
As others have mentioned a lot of them have. I use Vonage, which makes it easy when I move to a new location. Just plug it in and go. Plus Vonage offers some cheap or free dialing to other countries, such as Australia, which makes it attractive for me since my dad lives there.
This is a mobile version of what those other providers provide. For example, Cox's solution is a box similar to Vonage's, but with Vonage you can move anywhere in the US, possibly the world. With Cox, I'm limited to placed they service.
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@Dashrender said:
Is that a federal requirement or a local one?
@jason is not talking about anything that anyone on the customer side will ever see. He is talking about the connection to the PSAP (Public Safety Answer Point aka 911 operator).
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@JaredBusch said:
@Dashrender said:
Is that a federal requirement or a local one?
@jason is not talking about anything that anyone on the customer side will ever see. He is talking about the connection to the PSAP (Public Safety Answer Point aka 911 operator).
LOl - that infrastructure could easily be left in place - just a translation matrix put in to give the PSAP what they need, the rest of old telephoney system could be ripped out.
The centralized phone system is what allows 911 to function. If, let's scale this down a bit, the USA as a whole dumped the PSTN and moved to Skype (for example) 911 would have to be redesigned. Though speaking specifically of Skype - MS changed it's structure from non centralized call routing/flow to one that requires all calls to go through their hubs. These hubs could easily be setup to send 911 information as needed.
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@JaredBusch said:
When I was growing up the local telco was GTE North. bought/sold/blah. Finally landed as Verizon at the time DSL was introduced at the turn of the century. Guess what. Still no DSL available there.
That's what you get for living in Southern Illinois.
Northern Illinois, specifically DeKalb, was a pilot town for GTE's brand new frame relay DSL in 1997. I moved to Texas and got the third installation slot in town 1998. They had brand new folks learning how to put it in from my install. And I had to buy a POTS line because I was using ISDN. So add to the fun of porting over my number to POTS, dropping a pair in for the loop, then configuring all that fun stuff.
People wonder why I don't bat an eye when I have two pipes currently coming into the house. I've always paid a lot of money for my internet access.
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@Dashrender said:
Before I cut my phone portion of my bill down to $12/month (unlimited incoming, 100 min outgoing) I was paying $32 a month for unlimited in/out calling and caller ID/Call waiting/call waiting ID, On Screen Caller ID.
I live in an extended LATA here, so if I have a POTS line I have to pay a minimum $50 a month for it. The line itself is ~$20, just like everyone else in Texas. If I actually want to call someone outside of my town without paying long distance charges or even have someone from Dallas call me without paying long distance, I have to buy a "metro" line, that's another ~$10 or so. Then taxes, USF, and vertical services like CID and VM, you got a $50 phone bill.
When I worked for AT&T, it was pretty sweet for the line. Every vertical service sold by them, like VM, LineBacker, CID, and a DSL/dialup account so it was a $120 normal bill. I just had to pay taxes and anything above the 1.5Mbps loop for DSL, so $20 a month usually. My second, third, and fourth lines were as equally cheap and DSL was fairly inexpensive as well.
The month they finally got around to pulling my concessions off my phone bill really sucked. Only took them a year to do it. Thankfully AT&T was starting to sell unbundled loop DSL at the time so I was able to convert my multiple pairs and DSL pipes to dry loop. Then I flipped my house line to a SIP provider. $150 for two years of service paid up front, pretty nice.
