August 02, 2007

Unnecessary VoIP Peering

In today’s New York Times, David Pogue reviews different Internet calling plans and states as a matter of fact that none of them offer “free” calling to all PSTN numbers, though some may offer to a restricted set of destinations. As an elaboration of this statement, Tom Evslin explains that the access charge levied by different PSTN administrations is the root cause of this evil. He further states that, “If we all start using our Internet access lines instead of our phone lines for our voice communication, the access charge issue should disappear.” He cautions though that there are two “buts”. This note analyzes the two “buts”.

Tom cautions us that the telcos “would dearly like to get those who access you over your Internet connection to pay them”. It is in their nature. Yes, in many parts of the world wireless carriers are given a higher share of the access charges. But the telcos could not charge more for terminating a data/fax calls, even though they can clearly identify whether a call is data/fax call or just a voice call. Also, at that time the data/fax call was perceived to be of higher value. So I don’t think it is possible. What is more it is not feasible. I think the two end-points can camouflage the flow to be embedded sound in a web page, deep packet inspection notwithstanding.

Tom also admonishes the VoIP industry to come up with ways to peer in the IP domain rather than peering in the PSTN domain, thereby being stuck in the access charge mud. Here I have to disagree with Tom, even though he has more inside information than I have. I am of the opinion that VoIP providers like this access charge scheme just as much as the telcos. After all it is part of their business plan – otherwise they can not be so generous with the “virtual numbers”. They are also hoping that the network effect will keep their subscribers in the fold. So I do not hold out hope that VoIP service providers will see much need in VoIP peering. But not all is lost.

During the late Nineties I used to take advantage of AT&T Worldnet’s unlimited access plan (Tom’s master stroke, I might add) and will keep my computer connected all the time. My buddies in India will IM me via Yahoo! Messenger to get my IP address (which will be a public IP address) and then call me via NetMeeting and we used to have voice conversation. (Y! didn’t have voice capability then.) Those days we were not savvy enough to have our own “directory Service” and we depended on Y! for that. Now I know that that dependence is not needed either. NAT Traversal problem has been sufficiently solved for it not to be a hindrance. So I ask why we need VoIP providers in the first place. Shouldn’t we be focused on the end devices?

Posted by aswath at August 2, 2007 01:06 PM
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