Update on Convergence...
...and Voice over IP for Consumers
Voice over IP, sold by Vonage, Pulver.com, iConnectHere.com and Skype, has gained media attention amid a surge in new customers eager to save money and try leading edge offerings. In addition, established carriers such as AT&T and Qwest have announced offerings. As consumers rely more on cellular service and email, some are willing to accept the trade off of inferior voice quality on IP service for cost savings and features.
How it works
Carriers provide customers with either voice over IP telephones or terminal adapters that translate analog voice signals to IP bits and send them over DSL and cable connections. These IP devices, which store customers' identity, are plugged into customers' routers or modems. With the AT&T service, which will be rolled out in 2004, calls can be made whether the computer is on or off. Terminal adapters are portable and can be used anywhere there is a high speed Internet connection. Some services such as Skype and Pulver.com allow only computer to computer calling and require computer software not a terminal adapter.
Features:
- Geographic Portability – the ability to receive calls to the same number at multiple locations
- Ease of use – graphical user interfaces in computers to set up 10 person conference calls and schedule forwarding to other numbers including cell phones by time of day and day of the week
- Flexibility – Customers can retrieve voice mail and email from either their computer or their telephone.
- Inclusive packages: unlimited long distance, voice mail, caller ID and forward to voice mail
FCC ruling
The FCC oversees reliability on the public switched telephone network and collects fees used to subsidize telecommunications for rural, low income, educational, E911 and health related services. The FCC is looking at whether these fees and regulations should extend to voice traffic on the Internet and how carriers should compensate each other for connecting calls to each other's networks. A FCC ruling on February 12th deregulated computer to computer Internet calls. Voice calls on for example, Pulver.com's free service that does not reach the public network are exempt from regulations and the above fees.
Considerations
- Voice quality is inferior on IP because of congestion on cable and DSL service.
- VoIP services don't support E911 but carriers such as AT&T are working on a solution.
- For VoIP to support multiple phones, wiring needs to be extended from a home's main wiring block to the terminal adapter.
- IP phone service is lost in an electrical outage. Service on the public switched telephone network is not.
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