Spark move to IP-based voice

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Spark move to IP-based voice

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

28188 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1767566 19-Apr-2017 20:46

old3eyes:

I guess it will be a bit like saying goodbye to an old family friend..

Slightly senile and not the smartest friend, yeah. Caller ID? No, not on that number, you have to have a different one to get caller ID was a thing because of the antiqueness of the neax gear.

Good to see it gone, and perhaps the space it makes in the buildings they can use for something else? netflix and youtube caches ;)

Richard rich.ms

Technofreak

6530 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1767572 19-Apr-2017 21:06

richms:

......perhaps the space it makes in the buildings they can use for something else? netflix and youtube caches ;)

I somehow doubt it. They never used the space left over after the migration from S x S to NEAX. In the CAX where I was based the NEAX fitted into the MDF room.

I had a gaze around the exchange building about 18 months ago. The switch room was basically empty. One of the very few items left was the after hours callout list whiteboard complete with my handwriting of the last list I had put up before we were all made redundant in the early 1990's.

The Transmission Room was full of gear, much of it dating back to when I worked there during the late 70's through the 80's to the very early 1990's. That gear had served NZPO/Telecom/Spark very well.

Sony Xperia XA2 running Sailfish OS. https://sailfishos.org The true independent open source mobile OS
Samsung Galaxy Tab S6
Dell Inspiron 14z i5

hio77

12999 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lizard Networks

#1767574 19-Apr-2017 21:13

atomeara:

This is great news but I am wondering what is happening to ISDN BRA, ISDN PRA and customers stuck on Baseband PCM / Baseband Remote

(I have not included Cabinets/Exchanges that have 0 working lines - There are 120 sites that fit into this)

There are about 6000 ISAM cabinets / exchanges, all of these should be able to support Baseband IP and it looks like most of them do
(my maths has the variance about 20, and this could be due to the month gap between Baseband and Broadband reports - they are continuing to upgrade broadband cabinets)

There are about 400 older cabinets that only support ADSL 1 (Conklin and the like that I am sure Chorus want to try upgrade) that can not support Baseband IP

In total are 7712 Cabinets/Exchanges with working lines (and 7832 in total), so around 1300 that support voice but not DSL.

There are 21 Cabinets or Exchanges with Baseband Copper only, mostly remote Exchanges such as Glen Murray, Awhitu and Dunback with no fibre near

About are 767 Baseband Remote sites, these tend to be small and remote

About 1144 Baseband PCM sites that do not support Baseband Copper, Baseband IP or Baseband IP Extended

Many of the remote sites are currently not in mobile coverage, I am some what skeptical that RBI stage 2 will cover many of the remote areas with mobile coverage.

Depending how RBI Stage 2 funding gets allocated I think it could see a number of Chorus cabinets get upgraded but I am sure there will still be many 100's left.

Fair questions.. i'd say a little outside of Neils range to ask him.

Obviously where baseband is not possible, it is not possible. not like service can be haulted there... however, this is a clear statement towards chorus that all the gear listed needs to go.

ISDN is in a bucket on its own, and certainly not my area to comment on, i am aware there is push to move onto different platforms in these cases.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

chevrolux

4962 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1767646 20-Apr-2017 00:01

My thoughts towards ISDN is that a business that requires ISDN almost certainly has a data requirement these days that warrants at least a UFB connection. And then that ISDN is blown away and GVC2 takes over. Even more so if that business has a primary rate.

How many primary rates are seriously still running though?! I only work at the SME level so a common situation is 4 POTS, or 4-6 BRI's, etc. Every now and again you see primary rate lite. But are there a large number of proper PRA's?

Through all of this too, I can't help but think... mad props to the team who runs Sparks voice platform... It took a while to find the manual obviously, but to commit to turning off the NEAX shows how dam good their platform is.

sbiddle

30853 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#1767674 20-Apr-2017 07:35

chevrolux:

My thoughts towards ISDN is that a business that requires ISDN almost certainly has a data requirement these days that warrants at least a UFB connection. And then that ISDN is blown away and GVC2 takes over. Even more so if that business has a primary rate.

How many primary rates are seriously still running though?! I only work at the SME level so a common situation is 4 POTS, or 4-6 BRI's, etc. Every now and again you see primary rate lite. But are there a large number of proper PRA's?

Through all of this too, I can't help but think... mad props to the team who runs Sparks voice platform... It took a while to find the manual obviously, but to commit to turning off the NEAX shows how dam good their platform is.

There are very few compelling reasons for many businesses to still be on BRA/PRI - even if you want to keep the same hardware moving to VoIP with a converter makes so much sense financially, even if you're willing to pay big $ for a high end managed solution from somebody like Kordia or Spark.

The thing about ISDN is that it isn't just telephony though - BRA is still used extensively in the broadcast industry with radio and TV still using it extensively for outside broadcast links. Replacements for this require full IP solutions as a replacement, not a simple adapter and an Internet connection.

richms

28188 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1767675 20-Apr-2017 07:41

Are they any obligation to keep providing isdn and other legacy links tho? They had the kiwishare obligations which covered some services but I thought those were all gone now?

Just give a date, switch it off. Like they did with analog, and cdma networks.

Richard rich.ms

atomeara

324 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1767726 20-Apr-2017 09:24

There are a surprisingly large number of people still on ISDN BRA and PRA

Most of the time there isn't a good reason they haven't made the move other than not wanting to spend money changing. If it ain't broken don't fix it. Yes they will save money in most cases.

We had one customer move from ISDN BRA with Spark to Vodafone because the cost of change was nothing and they made some savings, the cost of change to SIP would mean a bit of new hardware and some engineering hours, so they didn't go with SIP. SIP would have worked out cost neutral after 12 months and then started saving them money.

You can't order new ISDN PRA now. I don't believe there is any TSO for ISDN.

Spark will be making a large amount of money of ISDN services still

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

sbiddle

30853 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#1767732 20-Apr-2017 09:39

There's still an interesting document online from 2008 that outlined the ISAM configuration for cabinets+exchanges for the original PLV rollout. I actually wrote quite a few blog posts on this at the time.. Looking back them I was oh so wrong predicting that by 2015 or so the vast majority of customers would be off the PSTN!

I'm still interested to know if the original Telecom undertaking with the government for PSTN/NEAX shutdown in 2020 has every actually ever been nullified or whether people have simply forgotten about it!

I'm unsure whether Chorus ever actually deployed the ISDN cards in then 7302 - maybe somebody can give us an update on this has happened or whether there are any plans to do this as part of this announcement?. ISDN customers stand to be the only customers actually affected by this announcement if these cards aren't being deployed.

www.comcom.govt.nz/dmsdocument/5593

ubergeeknz

3344 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Vocus

#1767738 20-Apr-2017 09:45

I imagine any sites which aren't currently covered by BBIP they will just build BBIP to. No reason BBIP gateways can't be hosted at the exchange in place of the NEAX POTS gear, it doesn't need to go out to cabinets. As for ISDN PRA/BRA I'm not sure what the plan is, but I'm sure they have something figured out, either grandfather them and "wait" for everyone to move to VoIP, or migrate any remaining services to gateways or similar.

old3eyes

9120 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#1767741 20-Apr-2017 09:50

sbiddle:

There's still an interesting document online from 2008 that outlined the ISAM configuration for cabinets+exchanges for the original PLV rollout. I actually wrote quite a few blog posts on this at the time.. Looking back them I was oh so wrong predicting that by 2015 or so the vast majority of customers would be off the PSTN!

I'm still interested to know if the original Telecom undertaking with the government for PSTN/NEAX shutdown in 2020 has every actually ever been nullified or whether people have simply forgotten about it!

I'm unsure whether Chorus ever actually deployed the ISDN cards in then 7302 - maybe somebody can give us an update on this has happened or whether there are any plans to do this as part of this announcement?. ISDN customers stand to be the only customers actually affected by this announcement if these cards aren't being deployed.

www.comcom.govt.nz/dmsdocument/5593

I asked one of contacts in Spark last year about PBX systems that were using ISDN and couldn't be updated to SIP trunking and they said that they would be supplying SIP to ISDN trunk converters. Yes there are still a lot of PBX systems out there that can't do SIP trunking.

Regards,

Old3eyes

sbiddle

30853 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#1767746 20-Apr-2017 09:53

ubergeeknz:

I imagine any sites which aren't currently covered by BBIP they will just build BBIP to. No reason BBIP gateways can't be hosted at the exchange in place of the NEAX POTS gear, it doesn't need to go out to cabinets.

There are no technical reasons, but having the gear in both makes life simpler. With the original ISAM configuration proposals (which you'll see in the link I posted above) the idea was a 1:1 mapping of xDSL cards to POTS emulation cards meaning that enabling or disabling voice services didn't mean any rejumpering or rejigging of the voice splitters.

In an era where naked is now the norm, from a financial perspective big $$$ could be saved by not going this and having voice only from the exchange.

richms

28188 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1767754 20-Apr-2017 10:08

sbiddle:

There's still an interesting document online from 2008 that outlined the ISAM configuration for cabinets+exchanges for the original PLV rollout. I actually wrote quite a few blog posts on this at the time.. Looking back them I was oh so wrong predicting that by 2015 or so the vast majority of customers would be off the PSTN!

Was UFB even an idea back then? That really has changed things in that the cabinets and copper are just ignored with the plan they will go away one day now.

LOL at the idea of a pstn interface for every line tho. Even back then people were wanting naked internet and just going cellphone only tho.

Richard rich.ms

atomeara

324 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1767755 20-Apr-2017 10:09

sbiddle:

ubergeeknz:

I imagine any sites which aren't currently covered by BBIP they will just build BBIP to. No reason BBIP gateways can't be hosted at the exchange in place of the NEAX POTS gear, it doesn't need to go out to cabinets.

There are no technical reasons, but having the gear in both makes life simpler. With the original ISAM configuration proposals (which you'll see in the link I posted above) the idea was a 1:1 mapping of xDSL cards to POTS emulation cards meaning that enabling or disabling voice services didn't mean any rejumpering or rejigging of the voice splitters.

In an era where naked is now the norm, from a financial perspective big $$$ could be saved by not going this and having voice only from the exchange.

There isn't the copper in the ground to run pairs for each customer back to the nearest BBIP exchange, many are on legacy radio links.

Easy for cabinets or exchanges with ISAMs. I think they all support BBIP now. What about the 1700 or so cabinets out there that do not even have any DSL support. The Baseband Remote or Baseband PCM sites. Most service small numbers of customers in remote locations without any fibre near by. There are not enough pairs just to run them back to the nearest BBIP exchange or cabinet and many are on legacy radio backhaul services.

Baseband PCM and Baseband Remote

Baseband PCM is available at Distribution (or Active) Cabinets with PCM systems from the local exchange. Baseband Remote is available where we have deployed Pair Gain, CMAR, and Country Set equipment.

Yabanize

2350 posts

Uber Geek

#1767756 20-Apr-2017 10:11

What sort of equipment to Vodafone use on their Cable network for PSTN?

nickb800

2719 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1767770 20-Apr-2017 10:26

The article on Stuff mentions that "People would also no longer be able to rely on older corded phones working for prolonged periods during a power cut" which has of course lit up the comments section.

Is this because voice will be delivered from cabinets rather than exchanges, which means a shorter duration battery backup and no diesel backup? I would have thought that simply replacing the NEAX with a SIP card solution would be unrelated to the power backup, unless they're planning on scaling down their battery backups at the same time.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4