John Dvorak has an article entitled "The Coming Death of Cheap VOIP" in PC Magazine's May 24th, 2005 issue. He mentions that the telcos will soon sniff out Skype-like traffic on their networks, and make it unusable, thereby forcing you to use the telco's VOIP service, or none at all.
Rather than debate the accuracy of what Dvorak said, I was wondering if any of you truly tech-savvy guys know whether there are ways to get around such technical roadblocks (such as encrypting VOIP traffic?). Thanks.
Correct. When ISPs have attempted to block only certain forms of traffic their customers leave. That and the courts have ruled against ISPs that have tried forcing it on customers. Basically, the market rules and customers will walk if their supplier tries f****ng with them.
Well you have to have a high-speed connection to make VOIP work.
I used to be with Telus for ADSL service. But what is the point of switching to VOIP - which Telus does NOT offer - if you still have to maintain a POTS line to get your ADSL (and get your VOIP)????
I have switched to Shaw for high speed bundled with Cable. I have connected to a VOIP provider, and sent the "Port" request for my phone number.
Telus does not need to worry about blocking my VOIP traffic any more. Within 3 to 4 weeks, Telus will no longer provide me with ANY form of service. :)
The reconfiguration and switch is a net saving of between $45 to $65 per month. This is too large a figure to ignore. AND I get better long distance rates with my VOIP provider than I EVER did with Telus.
The death of cheap VOIP is likely to come when Telus and other telcos start bitching and the damn government steps in and starts "regualting" them. This will drive up the costs for the VOIP service providers, and they are more than likely to pass on those costs.
What we need to do is pay atttention, and when the government starts considering regualtion - wirte EVERYONE! Write the CRTC and tell them to f-off and leave VOIP alone, write your MP and tell him or her that you DO NOT WANT government involvement in this industry any more.
Regulation was required when telephony was a scarce resource. This is no longer true. The original reasons for regulation no longer exist. Ongoing government interference in the market place is not welcome, and unless you tell them so - LOUDLY - then it is only a matter of time before they try to find a way to screw the VOIP providers at the hands of telcos who refuse to step out from behind the shield and compete in an open market.
Well..., given that the FCC recently fined a telco $15,000 and ordered them to STOP blocking VOIP traffic on their IP networks, I would have to say that ol' John has some 'splainin' to do. Perhaps he knows of some pending regulatory changes that will reflect a 180 degree change in the current path the FCC is following.
And yes, there most certainly are ways around this.
Could you give just a hint of the general categories of what those ways might be? Like 1.) Encryption of VOIP traffic. , 2.) Encapsulation of VOIP traffic inside another protocol (L2TP ?). , ....
Bullshit. Tell that to the family living out in the middle of nowhere. Someone's got to maintain the copper wiring plant for their basic phone services. That's a direct result of regulation and should continue.
To blindly call it 'interference' shows a distinct lack of understanding about the entire range of issues.
As I recall, in exchange for their *monopoly* the telcos agreed to wire everything, and were then permitted to recover the costs of wiring 'out of the way' places from the entire subscriber base.
I don't believe that a telephone, or the internet, is a 'basic human right' that should be guaranteed to everyone by regulation and paid for by all users of the system.
There's a fundamental difference between ensuring basic food, shelted and access to health care and providing a telephone and/or internet services.
Yes, it's a complex issue. But I haven't seen a convincing argument as to why the government should guarantee everyone telephone and internet access, and spread the costs across the entire population.
Hey threadstealers! Heh, I probably posted to the wrong forum. Would anyone know of a forum that is more nitty gritty tech-oriented re: VOIP? I'm hoping to find out about the technical ways of getting around such blocking by the telcos. Thanks.
Spoken like someone that doesn't live in an outlying area.
Sure, sure, and screw 'em if they want a 911 call to actually bring someone to save them, right?
That you can't be convinced is thankfully different than how the legislators understand the complexities.
The most basic part of the argument is making communication between all citizens an equally accessible option. Using regulations to balance the provisioning of this works quite well.
Yer entitled, as they say, to your opinion, BUT in the opinion of US courts telephone IS a basic right and cannot be removed without "due process" - e.g. if you don't pay they cannot just pull your plug.
This is the reason that POTS bills cannot be combined with other bills, such as cable TV, because the Cable TV CAN be terminated without due process.
There is always broadband over power line. Virtually everyone has electric power and the lines are maintained by the electric company. People in out of the way places could eventually get BPL and therefore VOIP. No need for the phone company.
Forget powerline. It doesn't work. (Well, it does work a little. But it is susceptible to interference from appliances like microwave ovens and vacuum cleaners, and it interferes with everything from shortwave to emergency services' radio. It sure sounded like a promising technology some years ago, but it just doesn't work.)
However, regulation in many countries requires ISPs to be service neutral. This is the way to go.
If, God forbid, I ever found myself in an "outlying area", I still wouldn't expect that choice to be subsidized. Should everyone pay the same taxi fares regardless of where they live?
If they overtly block apparently VoIP traffic, you just make it look like something else. Tunnel or whatever.
If they apply some sort of degradation to all traffic other than their own designated VoIP service, there's nothing you can do but switch ISPs (or force them to stop by other means).
There, that's settled. Now let's get back to how everyone living alone on a mountaintop is entitled to a subway station.
Then you are in the minority. I would maintain that most people, in the west at least, expect the availability of such utilities as phone service to be a part of those things their government is responsible for, if not directly, then through regulation.
The point behind universal service is that the more people you can call, the more useful your phone is. Providing service to people in the boondocks makes the phones of people in cities more valuable because they can now call their rustic friends and relatives.
I entirely agree that the administration of USF is screwed up, and there are a lot better ways to serve very rural areas than spending $10K to run a pair of copper wires 50 miles across the wilderness, but the basic network effect is sound.
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