At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this month, there was a whole area dedicated to the various small-fry companies jumping into Voice over IP (VoIP) telephonyan area largely pioneered by Vonageand offering all-you-can-phone service for $29.95 a month. A slew of telephone adapters modeled after the Cisco 186 has also appeared, making everything cheaper and cheaper. Offers of unlimited phone service for $9.95 are cropping up too, as is the re-emergence of computer-to-computer IP-to-IP phone systems. There are problems arising, though, because most people are still running on phone-company wires and we have a more and more flaky Internet.
Before I go on with this argument, I want to start by saying I do not want to hear about how one or two readers out there have these VoIP systems and they work flawlessly. I have had good experiences intermittently too. But all too often, the network simply hiccups and you sound like you are on the worst sort of cellular connection.
I have complained about this before, but now that VoIP telephony is blossoming, I'm getting too many phone calls from people using it. These chats always sound the same:
Phone rings. ME: Hello? Caller: Is this John Dvorak? ME: Yes. Caller: I, I'm Clyde Dunm calling for Wlfen Comp. ME: What? Caller: Hi, I'm Clyde Dunn, calling for Wolren Computer. ME: Hi, Caller: ME: Hello? Caller: Yes. ME: What? Caller: Did you get the sample we sent you? ME: What was it? Caller: A ME: A what? Are you on one of those Internet phones? Caller: Yes, why? ME: Call me on a real phone and I'll tell you.
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What makes this worse is that entire companies have hooked up to these things, with the same results. I'm always amused when a call center in India has one of these systems and it's so overloaded that you can't understand a thing, since the sound is so muffled.
I know that if you're sitting on a real T1 line rather than a DSL connection, the quality is usually identical to the switched service. That's because the T1 line is a different level of service than flaky DSL. A while back, I got into a chat with a phone service guy who was digging around inside an open junction box. He said the biggest problem with phone service in the San Francisco Bay area was squirrels eating through the wires. In the process, he showed me the difference between the T1 wires inside the junction box and the DSL hookup. The T1 wire was a huge thick wire. He made it clear that people were paying a lot of money for a T1, and they were getting better quality for the extra money. Yes, spend ten times as much for better wire. What a deal!
There is more to it than that. The phonecos have always played hardball with anyone and anything that ruins their income streams. In the early days of DSL, they attempted to squash the technology, because they knew it would eat into their lucrative T1 and T3 business. The fact is if the phonecos ever prioritized DSL, there would be no need for T1 service anywhere. DSL should deliver the same or better quality as any T1 line. But T1 is still the premium-level service, and the only line that appears to work flawlessly with VoIP systems all the time.
That said, it would be worthwhile to experiment with a VoIP phone at your office or home just to see how well it works. I have taken these phones to hotels to hook into the hotel network and had good luck. But with the current Internet slogging along under constant denial-of-service attacks and overloaded with spurious e-mail transmissions, the idea that VoIP is going to push aside land lines any time soon is wishful thinking. And now phonecos such as SBC are selling the VoIP equipment themselves, while indicating that if you use a VoIP phone that hooks to the company's switched network you are going to have to pay themunless, of course, you use the company's VoIP service.
Personally, I can't blame them for this policy. Why should they let you piggyback on their hard work? In a day of public utilities that were supposed to serve the greater good, it would be appropriate and right to piggyback. But in a deregulated winner-take-all every-man-for-himself dog-eat-dog world, it makes no sense. And that's the way all this will end. With weak and useless public utilities commissions throughout the country and no regulation, the phone companies will just do the things that benefit them the most. They own most of the wires. That's all that matters.
I guess my point is that the day when all calls are free is still a long way off.
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