[138141] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: What vexes VoIP users?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bret Palsson)
Mon Feb 28 14:30:47 2011
From: Bret Palsson <bret@getjive.com>
In-Reply-To: <9EA8D67A-6A1D-4500-AA1E-9062979B587D@delong.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2011 12:30:19 -0700
To: Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
We haven't run into that issue and have very large clients.
I'm interested to find out where you may have run into that issue?
-Bret
On Feb 28, 2011, at 12:25 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:
> Another vexation for VOIP in the SMB environment is that it rarely =
works particularly
> well (if at all) in light of a multiple-external-address NAT pool.
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> You simply have to map all of your VOIP phones in such a way that they =
consistently
> get the same external IP every time or shit breaks badly.
>=20
> Owen
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> On Feb 28, 2011, at 11:11 AM, Bret Palsson wrote:
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>> Since our company is a VoIP company, I will chime in to this topic.
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>> Let's start off with the definitions so everyone is on the same page:
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>> vex |veks|
>> verb [ trans. ]
>> make (someone) feel annoyed, frustrated, or worried, esp. with =
trivial matters : the memory of the conversation still vexed him | [as =
adj. ] ( vexing)the most vexing questions for policymakers.]
>>=20
>> Alright, now that that's out of the way...
>>=20
>> I am only referring to small medium business and some enterprise =
(Those are all our customers, we do not do residential)
>> - Seemingly complex.
>> - Worried about the "What if the internet goes down" scenario.
>> - Call quality.
>> - Price
>> - Location
>> - Outages
>>=20
>> Responses:
>> - Seemingly complex... Very true. Most VoIP companies, both hosted =
and on premises are difficult/time consuming to setup and make work they =
way you want it.=20
>> - What if the internet goes down. This one is a challenge. POTS =
actually have issues too, but when analog phone service goes down, there =
is no light on the phone indicating that the phones are not working so =
many customers perceive there is a problem. With the FCC mandating all =
POTS move to a VoIP backend (which for long hauls, is mostly already =
true) POTS will experience the same downtime as the internet.=20
>> However as we all know, the internet is built to tolerate outages.=20
>> For most people they don't understand how the internet actually =
works.
>> - Call quality... If a VoIP company pays for good bandwidth and =
maintains good relationships with peers, the only concern is the =
last-mile(=46rom the CO to location). Now there is much more that plays =
in quality, ie. codec selection, voice buffer, locality to the pbx.
>> - Price... Believe it or not people are worried about paying less for =
better service. Who would have thought?
>> - Location... Location is super important both in the last mile and =
PBX.
>> - Last mile:
>> In older locations the copper in the ground is aged, if =
you can't get fiber and your stuck using T1, lines, then hopefully you =
are in a location that keeps the copper in the ground properly =
maintained. If you are in older locations, which one of our offices are, =
there are remedies, you can contact your bandwidth provider and have =
them do a head to head test using a BERD (bit error rate detector) and =
they can find the problem. But that's a whole other topic.
>>=20
>> -PBX:
>> Some people believe that on premise is the best location =
for a PBX, this may or may not be true. I happen to believe that keeping =
it off premise is the way to go. You get up-time, redundancy, locality, =
and mobility. You just plug in your phone and your phone is up and =
running. Move offices.. got bandwidth? Your good to go. No equipment to =
worry about, say a power outage happens, your voicemail still works =
people call in and are in call queues and have no clue you are down. =
Feels more like POTS with an enterprise backend.
>>=20
>> -Outages: If the internet does fail, most providers offer WAN =
survivability. The customer plugs in phone lines into the router and if =
the internet goes down, they can make emergency calls or calls to the =
world limited by the number of lines the router can accept and are =
plugged in of course. Now in all our experience going on 7 years now, =
90% of the time WAN outages happen, guess what also dies, the POTS! Who =
would have thought that when cables get cut, that the phone lines were =
also part of the cables?
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>> There you go, some common worries, with some answers to hopefully =
sooth the vexed VoIP user.
>>=20
>> Bret Palsson
>> Sr. Network & Systems Administrator
>> www.getjive.com
>>=20
>>=20
>> On Feb 28, 2011, at 11:37 AM, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
>>=20
>>> On Mon, 28 Feb 2011 13:29:08 EST, Bret Clark said:
>>>> On 02/28/2011 01:17 PM, Leigh Porter wrote:
>>>>> VoIP at the last mile is just too niche at the moment. It's for =
people on this list, not my mother.
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>>>> Baloney...if that was the case, then all these ILEC's wouldn't be=20=
>>>> whining about POT's lines decreasing exponentially year over year!
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>>> I do believe that the ILEC's are mostly losing POTS lines to cell =
phones, not
>>> to VoIP. I myself have a cell phone but no POTS service at my home =
address. On
>>> the other hand, I *am* seeing a metric ton of Vonage and Magic Jack =
ads on TV
>>> these days - if VoIP is "too niche", how are those two making any =
money?
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>>=20
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