http://simonwoodside.com/projects/ict/voip_paradox.html
The Voice over IP paradox
Simon Woodside
*Abstract*
Voice over IP is paradoxically both internet and telephony at the same
time. This article presents the paradox, and associated arguments.
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*Table of Contents*
VoIP paradox and explanation
Regulation of VoIP
In the Real World
Conclusion
VoIP paradox and explanation
In a nutshell:
Voice over IP is paradoxically both internet and telephony at the
same time.
To understand this paradox we must adventure into the wild lands of
reliability and availability.
internet
The public internet. Availability on the public internet is /best
effort/ which means that other factors (such as price and bandwidth)
can be more important than availability.
telephony
The public and private branch exchanges of the telephone network.
Availability in telephony is counted as /five nines/. So, 99.999% of
the time when you pick up the phone you get a dialtone. That's all
but five minutes per year.
So what is this /availability/ beast?
availability
Given a random point in time, how likely it is that the system is
working at that moment.
The arbitrary point in time could of course be during an emergency. Will
VoIP work during an emergency? Here we run headlong into the paradox!
Because the internet is most emphatically not available in an emergency,
while telephony must be in order to have a functioning emergency
response.
Regulation of VoIP
It is easy to restate the VoIP Paradox in terms of regulation (by the
government). (Consider emergency use.)
a. VoIP is telephony and should be regulated.
b. VoIP is internet and should not be regulated.
Both seemingly reasonable statements, given the nature of regulation on
telephone systems and the public internet these days.
In the Real World
In the real world there are two types of implementations of VoIP that
reflect the paradox. First are the telephony-style implementations where
the phones come out and the VoIP goes in. Opposed are the internet-style
voice chat systems such as Microsoft NetMeeting, GnomeMeeting, and iChat
which are usually supplemental to an existing phone.
Conclusion
There is no conclusion. The situation is playing out in real time.
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