Is Cable Also Lukewarm about Near-term Wireless Opportunity?
by Gary Arlen
It was hardly surprising that a top Verizon executive brushed off cable operators' plans to develop urban WiFi networks for competitive local voice and data services.
"The cable companies will probably execute on some type of an MVNO [mobile virtual network operator] for WiFi, but we don't believe that it's going to be a replacement for LTE," said Verizon Communications' CFO Fran Shammo at Monday's Deutsche Bank Media, Internet and Telecom Conference.
Not sure if the SUBJECT line really explains what I am confused on!
It has been my understanding that when I place a call, until the called number answers, there is no audio path between the two ends, since it follows a different path.
I have a Google Voice number that I call into sometimes to forward on to another number. What I have been doing with that number is waiting until it goes to voice mail, then hitting the "*" to get into the advanced mode. Then I have to enter my account PIN, enter a "2" to tell it I am placing a call, and so on. But, it may take 20, or more, seconds for the voice mail to answer.
I have found that as soon as I hear the first ring, I can give it the "*" and it will immediately recognize that. How is that audio passed on to the number I have called, if it hasn't answered yet?
Well, there may be *SOME* audio allowed, depending on the type, class, and owner of the terminating switch. If it's an older design, you'll be able to /hear/ signals from the other end, since that's necessary to allow call progress tones and recordings to return to you. You /might/ also be able to speak to the other end, and that depends on both the originating and the terminating offices, as well as the design of tandems in between the end points.
These restrictions were put in place to reduce "Black box" fraud, which is a type of toll avoidance that tricks a terminating exchange into connecting a called party without signalling that the call was answered.
Oh, that's different. ;-)
Well, not really, but it depends on what Google is doing. They may be signalling "completion" as soon as the first ring occurs, and in that case you're hearing "ringing" from Google's switch, which means that as far as the ILEC/CLEC is concerned, the call has been completed and can be billed.
Google might also have a connection type which is not expected to return SS7 status information, in which case the originating switch may be providing a two-way voice path as soon as the call signalling is finished. It depends on the type of interconnections Google pays for.
With current digital PBX/call termination gear, and assuming digital trunks like PRIs, which are the most common, especially for technology companies like Google..
The call completion time in ISDN is very quick. So quick that the call signalling tones like ringing, answering, etc. is now handled by the PBX/SIP gateway/etc to provide signalling like ringing for people used to hearing ringing.
Thus, there is an audio path already setup and going by the time you get the ring signal back from Google's call gateway.
Ie. on the PBX system I run, I usually setup my ACD's to have a second to two of ringing first so that my customers' think the call "is going through", while having the agent hunt going on, so that both are together by pickup time. At first, before I added that in, customers could dial and be connected to us in sub-second times without a ring or any other signalling back that the call went through, and customers get confused if somebody starts speaking immediately to them. So I had to add in the ringing and a little delay for "the call to go through".
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