Thanks for that article, Darren.
One reality that emerges from T's current, and already demonstrated strategy of first going with switched, and then ostensibly going IP, centers on the time needed for capital recovery, or break even periods, after installing the new platforms necessary to support switched.
In the end, I think that this may all have been a means for them to momentarily benefit from several in-vogue, very forward looking and progressive concepts, like a move to IP Voice, as Mom slips into that seductive new Internet nightgown, while actually allowing them to proceed with a business as usual agenda in the switched mode.
In this way, they will have been able to use cabliphony almost like trojan horse. It puts an entirely new face on the phrase, "Bait and Switch."
Assuming that these break even time frames for switched are upwards of two to three years, at best, and maybe even up to five years (or worse), depending on subscription fill rates or lack thereof, one implication jumps right off the page. And that is, that we won't be seeing a sudden shift, or even the beginnings of a migration to IP voice in the years 2000 to 2002, where the frontrunner was installed with a switch. Perhaps cabliphony will materialize first in a secondary wave of implementations, maybe, where no voice exists yet. Only guessing.
It also suggests that the more attractive platform acquisitions for them to make will be those which are easily extensible with a built in migration path, from the switched mode to those which operate over IP or other packet modes, from the outset, as a form of hedged insurance.
One could also read between the lines on this one and reason that if switched is a screaming success, the MSO will have lost all incentive to go IP and would stay with the switched model for as long as it is making money, discouraging any incentives that they may have otherwise had to go with the IP mode in the first place. Why cannibalize a good thing?
Continued success of the switched mode, and other factors such as those which are responsible for my circuit patches from 1969 still being up to Madrid for the Moon Shot, may cause us to see switched becoming embedded for a very, very long time.
As I've stated many times before here, VoIP doesn't need the blessings of the MSO, or xLECs, for that matter, in order for it to blossom on cable and dsl. It could simply become another Internet application on the desktop using normal IP access schemes like DSL and Cable Modem, and possibly augmented with special plug adjuncts in the way of expansion cards on the home unit, to make it as transparent at some point as POTS is today.
The one element required before this could happen in a way that would result in a commercial grade service equivalent, though, is the assurance that IP voice traffic will not get snuffed when last mile bottlenecking on even these newer "broadband" pipes kicks in [again]. We'll need to see a form of prioritization scheme established on cable's IP delivery component via cable modem. How likely is this to take place for voice, if switched services prove to be a a continuing thriving enterprise for last mile providers?
Regards, Frank Coluccio |
