Telecom's NGN - Pros and cons?

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sbiddle

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#15558 28-Aug-2007 19:35

Mauricio's blog post yesterday talking about Telecom's NGN and the shock(!) discovery by some journalists that the existing POTS infrastructure in NZ will be replaced entirely by a FTTN network with nothing more than an ADSL modem and VoIP phones or ATA's to run existing phones has created quite a few comments, especially when it comes to the issue of phones no longer working in people's homes in a power cut unless they have a UPS or battery backup.

Rather than continue that thread in a blog post I thought it might be worth letting it continue here, especially since there are some very valid points being raised and probably a few people unaware of the discussion that has occured.

How many people do actually realise that within a 2-7 year timeframe that your connection to the outside world will be nothing but a copper cable that gives you an ADSL2+ internet connection and that all your phonecalls will be VoIP, whether by an ATA to run existing phones or a dedicated VoIP phone?

Is the reality of no phone service in a power cut a serious issue unless you have a UPS powering your ATA or VoIP phones? Remember that mobile's will be unaffected by localised power cuts. TelstraClear's FTTN network in Wellington and Christchurch has battery backups in the cabinets to provide backup power to the OTN's but they aren't delivering a VoIP only phone service so as long as those batteries last a customer will still have a phone service.

I didn't reastically think we would see free broadband in NZ until the NGN rollout started but Vodafone have now set the ball rolling. What implications are there once dialup internet is no more and everybody has a free basic broadband connection included as part of their phone service.

How will other providers differentiate their service from Telecom? Will mobile eventually play a major role when it comes to voice calls and copper connections serve the role of providing data services?

Is Telecom's decision to roll out their NGN and offer us what is potentially the most advanced system in the world good or bad?

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#84185 28-Aug-2007 21:32

Having studied Telecom's NGN in depth, and others around the world, It is generally assumed that Telecom's NGN is going to save a bunch of money, and simplify a whole lot of stuff by moving to one common network layer.

The problem I have is the on mass 'upgrade' of our telephone service to a platform which can't be used to reach emergency services during a power outage, without public discussion, or consultation with the community - i.e. the people which literally depend on these services to stay alive.

Telecom are moving this project forward pretty quickly, mainly because they can't purchase parts for their PSTN (Plain Standard Telephone Network) anymore, so by replacing it with the NGN, and salvaging parts along the way to keep the rest of the network alive during migration is the current plan.

I've only used the emergency services a few times, but my life would have changed a lot if we couldn't get through. Lets hope people don't have to start dieing before we think this through.

I understand a lot of us are geeks on here :), and we all probably understand the implications of a NGN on having to have a UPS in your house, but seriously, how many NORMAL New Zealander's are going to do this, or even know about it. Are your mom and dad going to know suddenly they need a backup battery to call 111 now when the powers out?

For example look at the south island which only this year lost power for two weeks. Lets assume that mom and pop DID read the paper, and did get a battery backup. It probably lasted a few hours or days, then stopped. Dad then falls chopping wood, or mum has a heart attack. No one can be reached because the battery is dead. Emergency networks need to be RELIABLE. Broadband does not.

I think a centralised system independent of the power grid for telecommunications power has served us and the previous generations well, surely we should be creating MORE reliable networks, not less.

Heres my thoughts on what we should be doing

We should still supply power down the copper lines, and rattify a standard which routers can use like Power over Ethernet to power themselves.

Have all the nodes in the area previously covered by a telephone exchange wired together on the same power circuit, and a central point where a generator can be dropped in to charge the nodes batteries, or keep the network in that area up and running.

I know it would cost more - question is, how much more?, taking into account the multiple networks Telecom get to collapse into the NGN (pacnet, Frame, ATM, POTS, ISDN, DDS, EftPos.)

I believe emergency networks need to have survivability built into them.

Or another alternative, from what I remember reading, is you can now get DSL/POTS cards for DSLAMS which do both DSL and normal POTS (converting to VOIP) on the actual card. This means the residential gear doesn't need to change.

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Niel

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#84187 28-Aug-2007 21:51

What happens when the power is out and you have a cordless phone? Happened to my in-laws, the base station needs power for the phone to work.

There should be a standard for getting power over broadband (PoBB) just like PoE for Ethernet. But that will cost Telecom money and still will not solve the issue for all the people with cordless phones.

If consumers can be educated to make arrangements with their power company if they rely on power for medical equipment, then they can be educated to have a UPS or a mobile phone if they rely on a phone connection for emergencies.

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paradoxsm

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#84190 28-Aug-2007 22:34

They might just install the VoIP stuff in the exchanges or "Remote line units" which are the small boxes parked in the streets still and just remain with existing analogue lines for the time being for "last mile" communications.

I remember dismatling a Crossbar in 2001 and speaking to the techs about it and what was scary was the old beast was fully self-sufficient if the umbilical to the host exchange was severed but if under the new system the fibre link or the host ever went down, no more phones for the small remote exchange!

Bad stuff.

KiwiOverseas66

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#84201 28-Aug-2007 23:28

As a newbie, sorry if this comes across as simple - so here goes....

wont the issue of phones not working without power arrive a lot earlier then Telecom's planned migration in the form of naked DSL? That service is due to be introduced before the end of year I think (?) - and is a service that ISPs are chomping at the bit for as it means they can provide a completely set of IP based services (internet access, VoIP, maybe IPTV, etc) - all without a dial tone. And of course if you buy one of these VoIP services and the power goes off.....?

Naked DSL, along with a whole bunch of other unbundle services, is what everyone has been asking for, is what the Ministry of Economic development has been working for years on, what the newspapers have been calling for, etc. I guess my point is - isn't a bit late to be asking questions about how people ring emergency services when the horse has already bolted? The whole point of the unbundling legislation was to hand the raw network over to competitors, and they run the service. Isn't this what people wanted?

Personally I am concerned about this issue as I don't think nearly enough research or work has been done to consider the full implications of phone services without a dial tone and how this affects emergency services (be it naked DSL or the NGN migration). You can bet that somewhere in central Otago or South Cantebury, some elder pensioner is going to be sold a VoIP service over naked DSL without fully realising the phone like device they have just been given isn't a phone - but a terminal - and once the power runs out it dies. And if they are without power for a couple of weeks.....

What is also apparent is that their is no legislation requiring voice providers to commit to minimum service or performance levels. Telecom is the only telco required to commit to minimum up time for the network, minimum performance guarantees, etc. An ISP providing a VoIP service is only required to adhere to the Consumers Guarantees Act, and the Fair Trade Act - i.e - VoIP becomes another service like email - governed by best endeavour.

Does this make sense?

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#84214 29-Aug-2007 08:17

Niel: What happens when the power is out and you have a cordless phone? Happened to my in-laws, the base station needs power for the phone to work.

Some cordless phones do have battery backup for the base station. That it's not more common probably reflects the economics v's mains power security situation. Because powering looks so simple and isn't as glamorous as other aspects of telecommunications, it's always been the first victim of cost cutting.

The reality is that amongst all the VOIP providers there will be far more breakdowns blamed on software glitches than power failures.

barf

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#84219 29-Aug-2007 08:52

my main concern with NGNs (ick TLAs so early in the morning) is the increased centralisation, as evidenced by Xtra's move to Yahoo! -hosted email services overseas. if a decades old cross-bar exchange can be self-reliant when it's bearer is severed (that's pretty interesting paradoxsm!) I think it would be a step backwards to use MPLS to ship frames from DSLAMs in the sticks to IP routers in Auckland.

Since the price of IP and Ethernet equipment has been hitting the floor in recent years, surely there could be more resiliance put into the network design, perhaps even using IP routing at a municipal or suburban level, it's not like theres a lack of IPv6 address space. On that subject deploying IPv4 networks on the scale I suggest is just plain silly. IPv6 is better suited to streaming media/IPTV (anycasting) and ~~NGNs~~ future networks, and the IPv6 mobility project is looking very interesting for mobile communications.

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#84220 29-Aug-2007 08:56

One of the current problems with Telecom's NGN is that it's about 4 years behind schedule and $2bil under investment.

The existing NEC analog exchanges are now running on borrowed time as NEC has not produced any spares since they were told that "The NGN would be up and running by 2003 and we don't need any spares". There are allot of Telecom people out there keeping their fingers crossed that they don't have a major failure that results in a power down as some exchanges may not restart from cold..

The upside is we may get better broadband when it get rolled out.... though don't count on it..

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TinyTim

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#84242 29-Aug-2007 11:17

paradoxsm: They might just install the VoIP stuff in the exchanges or "Remote line units" which are the small boxes parked in the streets still and just remain with existing analogue lines for the time being for "last mile" communications.

That's how BT's doing it - multi access gateways that separate out the voice to base band, so the migration to NGN happens without the end user even knowing about it.

sbiddle

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#84243 29-Aug-2007 11:21

TinyTim:
paradoxsm: They might just install the VoIP stuff in the exchanges or "Remote line units" which are the small boxes parked in the streets still and just remain with existing analogue lines for the time being for "last mile" communications.

That's how BT's doing it - multi access gateways that separate out the voice to base band, so the migration to NGN happens without the end user even knowing about it.

I believe that was Telecom's initial plan as well. IMHO it's a far better way of going about things, sometimes technology can get ahead of the end user.

munchkin

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#84278 29-Aug-2007 14:27

KiwiOverseas66: As a newbie, sorry if this comes across as simple - so here goes....

wont the issue of phones not working without power arrive a lot earlier then Telecom's planned migration in the form of naked DSL? That service is due to be introduced before the end of year I think (?) - and is a service that ISPs are chomping at the bit for as it means they can provide a completely set of IP based services (internet access, VoIP, maybe IPTV, etc) - all without a dial tone. And of course if you buy one of these VoIP services and the power goes off.....?

I think you'll find that a phone connected to a phone line with no 'phone service' provisioned to it [a dry line] will still be able to make emergency calls - atleast that has been my experience in Canada and here in the past.

sbiddle

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#84279 29-Aug-2007 14:35

munchkin:
I think you'll find that a phone connected to a phone line with no 'phone service' provisioned to it [a dry line] will still be able to make emergency calls - atleast that has been my experience in Canada and here in the past.

My understanding is that won't be the case with a ULL circuit. It certainly won't be the case with the NGN since there is no PSTN switch at the other end to even generate a disocnnected tone.

munchkin

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#84281 29-Aug-2007 14:41

I know that it won't be the case with the NGN, I mean in the here and now

Would it depend on who your provider is (when you have Naked DSL) as to whether you would be able to do this? (different equipment,etc..) I know that this works with Telecom as I have failed to pay my bill [on more than one occasion] in the past, only to have the phone line 'disconnected' but DSL still working like a treat - not that I ever used the phone line.

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#84289 29-Aug-2007 15:41

Whilst on the subject of NGN, is there anyway of finding out when & what exchanges/cabinets will be upgraded with FTTN or this strictly under NDA & Commercially sensitive?

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#84331 29-Aug-2007 19:45

Why not just use a DSLAM with an ATA function built into it? then you can power from the cabinet/exchange, and the residential line will continue to work.....

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KiwiOverseas66

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#84338 29-Aug-2007 20:29

munchkin: I know that it won't be the case with the NGN, I mean in the here and now

Would it depend on who your provider is (when you have Naked DSL) as to whether you would be able to do this? (different equipment,etc..) I know that this works with Telecom as I have failed to pay my bill [on more than one occasion] in the past, only to have the phone line 'disconnected' but DSL still working like a treat - not that I ever used the phone line.

I think I have the same understanding as sbiddle - that a ULL/ naked DSL line will be just a bit rate connection - not connected to any PSTN switch, no analogue signal, no dial tone. That was also partly the point I failed to make....there is no minimum service requirement on ULL (i.e - you must provide a voice service), and no requirement on providers outside of Telecom that if they do provide voice, then it needs to have a minimum uptime.

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