Lucius, pardon my out of sequence reply to your post 3195. I've been all
over the map.
"You see "toll quality" from a business standpoint, but I was thinking
about it also on a consumer level."
I see your point, but I don't think the two can be separated, if the carrier
wished to remain whole. It's kinda hard to go EBITDA + when your
subscriber base leaves you due to lousy sounding voice delivery. -g-
"Who can really say for sure how much cheaper packet switched
voice will be in a couple of years? Certainly enough to tempt people in
countries where the average income is much lower than the US. Maybe
they could just give it away as part of a ISP package like done with
e-mail today."
Maybe I oversimplified this point. VoIP can only be achieved overseas to
points where Internet infrastructure can be delivered. Or in the same
proximity through extension onto the local PSTN through local central
office arrangements where gateway devices would need to be installed.
This, of course, requires the local PTT to be agreeable to the idea in the
first place, which isn't the case very often.
(Instead, many overseas ITSPs (Internet telephony service providers) find
themselves having to take their wires in and out of the CO multiple times to
achieve the same end game as they would have achieved if they were
permitted to colocate in the central offices, in the first place.
And this is all a part of the governments way of saying, in many cases,
that if they don't acknowledge what is going on by this form or rejection,
then they don't have to deal with it out in the open. At issue, behind the
curtains, is the matter of international accounting rates, settlements, and the
pressures that are being applied by the FCC and the World Trade
Organization, primarily on tariffs and deregulation in general.)
I've been fortunate enough to try some of these links out recently, and
they worked amazingly well, in many instances. Of course, it's still a pot
luck issue where the foreign end has not been implemented with robust
provisions, yet. But to the main hubs (like Moscow, London, Milan) they
are quite robust.
But the requisite PCs and gateways - in addition to the POP locations that
need to be in place, first - are NOT no brainers in many areas. My
earlier treatment on this matter upstream tended to be focused on the
technology itself, and not necessarily on the ease of deployment. Many
restrictions, in fact, have more to do with gaining the acceptance (or the
forbearance, as it were) of the local PTT, than they do with the
technology.
And it would also be helpful to keep in mind that the variant of VoIP that
I'm referring to here is nothing more than the GSTN emulation type, and
does not take into account any of the Internet's other features and
attributes. It's simply a form of replacing the mid links of the established
carriers with an IP cloud (whether it's a private IP cloud or the public
Internet).
"On this thread we should be mainly looking for true gorillas as strictly
defined by the gg book, but they are so scarce that lots of us are willing to
stretch for diversity. Almost everybody here already owns the main
gorillas. Do you have any suggestions for at least prince status?"
Agreed, in this space diffusion has run rampant, uncertainty abounds, and
the end state target is still very elusive in terms of what it will look like. My
guess is that we will wind up with the classic scenario of a top three (you
know who they are already, IMO, being LU, CSCO and NT) holding
down some fifty or sixty percent of the market here domestically with the
North American carriers, at least. I would leave some room here and the
possibility of a foursome to include Nokia or Ericsson, and possibly even
QCOM on the fringes as wireless IP voice ramps up.
The remaining forty or fifty points might go to several dozen others.
Among the 'others' however, I think that there will be several pure plays
(despite contemporary wisdom differing with me on this) who will make
their mark in the convergence space on the "Internet" side of the equation
(as opposed to being supported primarily from a PSTN emulation
perspective).
No, I have not identified or formed any opinions on any of those players
yet. They usually die a quick death because no one believe in their
philosophy, or they get bought out too fast by one of the players in the top
three circle. But I think that some will manage to fit through the cracks as
time goes by, like CSCO once did in the face of N.E.T. and Timeplex.
Tune into the VoIP thread from time to time. Maybe one of these jewels
will emerge there, if it hasn't already.
Regards, Frank Coluccio |
