[LINK] Resilient Broadband Network needed for Australia

[Kim Holburn]

On 2008/May/08, at 5:19 AM, Glen Turner wrote:

> Tom Worthington wrote:
>
>> It is likely that consumers and businesses will replace their wired  
>> phone services with VOIP over this new network. Most VOIP services  
>> are currently not designed for emergency communications, nor to  
>> operate during a mains power failure. The RFP asks about provision  
>> of battery backup of the equipment and also mentions emergency  
>> calls, but this is priority 16 out of 18.
>
> Batteries in CPE are two-edged. You'd need to run one of those
> distasteful exercises estimating deaths from disaster against
> deaths from additional house fires.
>
> VoIP resilience is currently problematic. There's insufficient
> redundancy of call routing, insufficient peering between
> ISPs, and insufficient connectivity into the PSTN and mobile
> networks.  The situation needs a technical directive from ACMA,
> but Telstra and Optus won't be happy as they'll lose PSTN
> revenue as a result.

I remember reading something from Telstra (or maybe it was hearsay)  
that they assume that broadband users are going to use VOIP in some  
form or another and factor that loss into their pricing.  Of course  
actually losing that PSTN billing revenue is still painful for them  
but the fact is that a lot of people are making man calls, including  
and maybe especially long distance calls, on skype.

Of course if the standard VOIP protocols like SIP and H323 had been  
written by someone with a clue about internet routing then VOIP would  
be up and running in a big way already.

Kim

--
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
Ph: +39 06 855 4294  M: +39 3494957443
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Democracy imposed from without is the severest form of tyranny.
                           -- Lloyd Biggle, Jr. Analog, Apr 1961