North American Network Operators Group
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RE: More on Vonage service disruptions...

  • From: andrew2
  • Date: Wed Mar 02 13:37:10 2005 
[email protected] wrote:
> Subject: Re: More on Vonage service disruptions...
> 
> 
>> Yeah, I forgot about the regulation thing.  I suppose I'd give the
>> ISP a call first, but I'd expect it to be working within a few
>> hours.  But now that cable modem providers themselves are providing
>> VoIP/dialtone, wouldn't those be regulated by the FCC?
> 
> A few quick observations here (my own, personal opinion):
> To paraphrase an earlier comment " a 90K stream is not an
> issue" but what about 10,000's of them?
> In the circuit switched arena, the LEC's compensate each
> other for either originating (toll free) or terminating
> traffic (LD) in a  regulated environment. Thus there is some
> business reason to build the network out to handle the level traffic.
> That is not the case here (with VoIP), as most ISP's are
> paying for transport, peering connections, backhaul circuits,
> internal network bandwidth, etc. The IP Phone providers may
> be paying THEIR ISP, but the $$'s don't nescessarily  flow
> down to the ISP that the customer is connected to.
> That end user's ISP must now pay more for transit, plus beef
> up their internal network infrastructure to handle the
> additional traffic. That would result in having to raise
> rates, perhaps making the previously viable, dirt cheap, VoIP
> look like not so competitive a choice (vs. traditional
> dialtone) to the end user anymore.
> A question to ponder - what would happen to your network ,
> from both a technical and financial perspective if all of
> your customers circuit switched voice traffic suddenly became ip?

I think you answered your own question.  ISP's would have to raise
rates, and voip may suddenly be not as attractive a choice for phone
service.  It seems to me that market forces will handle this "problem"
rather nicely on their own.  Right now VoIP providers and users are
getting a bit of a free lunch.  It's certain not to last.

Andrew