Hi Stephen,
>>The future promise of VoIP as the ultimate solution for high telecommunications tariffs could evaporate if deregulation causes connect charges to plummet as they have, right? So if this happens, will there still be a strong need for voice-over-data solutions in corporate WANs?<<
IMO, price is still by far the biggest issue today. Drastic rate cuts by the regulars probably would remove most of the impetus from VoIP's adoption rate. But voice-data integration would still happen eventually with or without the price incentives. Maybe much later, without favorable price-performance incentives such as those which are promised today by VoIP and its m-m cousins.
Take away the price incentives, and you are left with some lesser drivers that would have a questionable effect on their own, for short term market-share appreciation of VoIP.
And if it takes a couple of years before interoperability is reached for VoIP, delaying its viability as a long term solution, it will give ATM's VTOA and other forms of low bit rate voice [LBRV] a chance to catch up, and possibly put it in a position to give VoIP a run for its money later on, solely on the basis of price.
If there's one thing that ATM possesses, its a well thought out, uniform set of standards, albeit a long time in coming.
Nevertheless, it will run across all ITU compliant ATM platforms, and avails itself to interoperability when it is eventually put to use.
Low bit rate ATM voice doesn't have the essential component in place yet to give it the reach it needs, and that is a critical mass of carriers who are actually using it.
Low bit rate ATM Voice [not the T1 circuit emulation variety, rather the compressed version similar to VoIP] is still a nascent prospect which many of the larger carriers will implement, because it will allow them a multiple of efficiency compared to the DS0 approach they currently take.
They have selfish reasons for eventually doing this, obviously, and they will implement it when the time is right for them on an individual case basis. And, they are in no apparent hurry at this point, IMO, as their status quo technologies continue to bring in record revenues through increased usage, every quarter.
A year and a half to two years? That's about what it would take to get a few of the larger carriers "seeded" with l-b-r ATM Voice on some of the heavier routes. Will VoIP be up to speed by then to keep the interest of its current followers (and here I'm not talking about the stock holders, rather, the carriers and their users)?
I don't know. Anyone? |
