January 2006 Archives

Enterprise based IP Telephony systems routinely deliver quality and reliability that is equal or superior to traditional TDM based voice systems. However, that is not always the case with hosted services. Especially, residential VoIP services that depend on best-effort voice transport systems.

I’ve been a Vonage customer for approximately two years now. Despite the fact that I’ve had issues with the quality of my broadband connection, I’ve been generally satisfied with the service. However, from the beginning I’ve wondered if Vonage would be able to scale their service at a sufficient rate to keep pace with their tremendous growth.

I’ve long suspected that the performance of their voicemail system might not be up to the task. Often, I’ve experienced long delays in receiving the prompts to authenticate when retrieving my voicemail. Also, people calling me have complained of long pauses (approximately 10 seconds) before they receive the record beep after being forwarded to voicemail. Yesterday afternoon the voicemail system was down completely.

VoIP works. But building a reliable service is not a trivial task. Many components must work together flawlessly. What many VoIP service providers don’t realize is that many customers will not tolerate quality or reliability issues. Sure we tolerated voice quality issues with cell phones (especially in the early days). But cell phones provided a service that was not previously available. Residential VoIP service is different. The bar is extremely high for residential voice. The fact is that the traditional telephone service has set a very high expectation of quality. When we pick up the handset on our regular telephone we don’t wonder if we’ll get dial tone. We don’t give voice quality a second thought. And if we dial 911, we know it will work. Most customers will expect the same quality attributes from their VoIP service and will not tolerate any less for the sake of saving a few dollars per month.

I’m currently considering going back to the traditional bell service; I can’t believe I’m saying this! But, the possibility of missing calls, experiencing poor voice quality and wondering if the voicemail that I left will be of sufficient quality to be understood is just not acceptable.

NOTE: I want to be clear. I have no issue whatsoever with the quality and reliability of enterprise IP Telephony systems. My concerns are limited to residential based VoIP services.

Rick McCharles
President, RIC Services

Stumble It!

Since the year 2000, I've been using VoIP at my home. Initially, my VoIP phone was driven by a lab that I had built to test the initial concepts that eventually evolved into Telus' IP-One service. Back then, I couldn't understand why companies weren't launching VoIP based residential services. After all, it worked very well and it was relatively inexpensive to build a service that had a huge potential for growth. Since that time, I've experimented with a multitude of residential based VoIP services including Skype, Vonage, Free World Dialup and many others.

No matter which service I used, the voice quality has always been excellent. In fact, the voice quality sometimes exceeded my traditional Bell service. As a result, in conversations with colleagues and clients, I would boast that even without QoS, I enjoyed great service 98% of the time.

From my earliest VoIP tests in 1998, I have always maintained that strict end to end QoS mechanisms were mandatory for business based IP Telephony services but I contended that best effort mechanisms were adequate for residential service. Well, I've changed my opinion.

Over the last several months the poor quality of my broadband connection has made my VoIP service virtually unusable. Tests have revealed huge delay, jitter and packet loss. So naturally, I called my broadband service provider; the only broadband service provider in my area. They acknowledged that they have a severe congestion issue in my area, that a rebuild will be required and that it could take two days, two weeks or two months to complete; perhaps more. But, to ensure that I remain a satisfied customer, they would give me a month of free service; great I save $40.00!

Under the current mode of operation, the quality of most VoIP based residential services is totally dependant on the network connections that are used to transport the encapsulated voice to and from their client locations. I say most because there are exceptions. That same service
provider who is currently providing me with the lousy broadband service has the capability of supplying me with a QoS enabled VoIP service that would work fine even on my congested connection. Why? Because, they own and control the infrastructure and can prioritize my voice traffic. Well, for a number of reasons, I won't subscribe to their phone service.

Ultimately, I believe regulators will have to get involved to ensure that the owners of the last mile do not have an unfair advantage over their VoIP competitors. Two issues must be addressed:

1. Residential broadband service providers must offer their VoIP competitors the ability to prioritize voice traffic. I'm not saying that this service should be free, but it needs to be priced fairly.

2. Residential, and other broadband service providers, must be prohibited
from intentionally hindering or blocking their competitors' voice traffic. I've heard of a couple of incidents of this already. Without intervention, there will be more. Regulators should be taking proactive measures on this issue.

Unless the regulators get involved there's a chance that the only viable choice for residential voice consumers will be dictated by the same old monopolies and that the promise of true choice and innovation promised by VoIP technology will be unfulfilled.

Rick McCharles
Telecom Consultant, Toronto, Ontario Canada
President, RIC Services

Stumble It!

I’m sometimes asked by clients about the difference between VoIP and IP Telephony. Although the terms are used interchangeably, I prefer to make the following distinction:

VoIP (Voice Over IP) is the term used to describe the encapsulation of digitized voice in IP packets. VoIP is about the transport of voice. Over the last couple of years, the media and the public have largely used the term VoIP to describe residential voice services such as Vonage and Skype. These services usually offer best-effort type delivery of voice over the public Internet.

Conversely, IP Telephony is the term I use to describe all of the system components (hardware & software) that combine to produce business class voice services. Typically, a business class IP Telephony system will use a private network that will control the delay, jitter and packet loss characteristics of the voice transport to ensure consistent quality.

The components may include:

- Call signaling and control
- Media services
- Media Gateways (for connection the IP world to the PSTN)
- Messaging
- Conferencing
- Advanced features (Like Find-Me / Follow-Me)
- Automatic Call Distribution
- Many others

An IP Telephony system will typically use VoIP as its transport mechanism but will almost always also utilize traditional TDM or analogue circuits for voice transport services.

Ultimately, the marketplace and public at large will dictate how we refer to the technology. For the present, I prefer to use the term IP Telephony to describe QoS enabled, business class voice systems.

Rick McCharles
IP Telephony Consultant, Toronto, Ontario Canada
Stumble It!

At the urging of some of my colleagues, I've decided to join the world of blogging.Of course, the main subjects I will cover will be news, events and opinions related to IP Telephony.I tend to have strong opinions on many IP Telephony topics but I also pride myself in keeping an open mind and I'm not too proud to change my views when appropriate.I hope you will find my posts interesting and useful.

Rick McCharles
VoIP Consultant, Toronto, Ontario Canada
Stumble It!