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Technology Stocks : Nortel Networks (NT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: telecomguy who wrote (6708)	9/6/2000 11:35:24 AM
From: Dan Breslau	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14638

I'm de-lurking to respond to this... Internet Telephony is NOT the same as IP (Internet Protocol) transmission method. [...] QWest routes voice using IP transmission method through their PRIVATE DEDICATED network You've got a point there, but I'm not sure why it's relevant. Yes, some companies route calls through the public internet (over a mess of heterogeneous technologies.) I don't see a lot of business happening there for some years to come, and I don't think OG has been calling for that either. The real use of IP in telephony that I see coming in the near term is just as you say: QWest routes voice using IP transmission method through their PRIVATE DEDICATED network Of course, it's easier to ensure QoS if you have control over the technologies and transmission speeds in your network. No argument. But does that suggest that IP equipment providers like Cisco aren't breaking into the telecom space? No... just the opposite. It's true that IP was not designed for telephony, or for the strict QoS that telephony requires. But that problem is being solved. It will be. It has to be. Because no other protocol -- not ATM, not FR, not SONET, not Ethernet -- is as ubiquitous as IP. No other protocol is known by as many applications running today. Running ATM to the desktop -- or even SONET, or even lambdas -- won't do anyone any good if the apps don't speak it. They do speak IP. And as providers like Qwest roll out technology that provides QoS for IP, do you really doubt that they -- or their customers -- would wish to use any other protocol to send bits over the wire? Why on earth would anyone do that? What else would provide the integration of voice, video, and data? Or do you not see why someone would want that? Now, when you say even then I am sure they overlay ATM to ensure certain QoS and overcome other shortcomings of IP for voice traffic Ummm. This may seem picky, but ATM is never overlaid on top of IP. Never. IP is overlaid on ATM. And why not? Something has to be the underlying protocol -- why not ATM? As you say, it provides QoS -- so the IP hardware doesn't have to do all the work. Does this denegrate IP in any way? Not hardly. Because it's IP that the applications see. And that's where the money is.