[TelstraClear] What are TelstraClear's plans for offering Voip services

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paulspain

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#79681 25-Jul-2007 21:45

Grant17 - good description - but you'd need to be careful which wires you're cutting if you internet connection run over DSL.

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grant_k

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#79682 25-Jul-2007 21:56

paulspain: Grant17 - good description - but you'd need to be careful which wires you're cutting if you internet connection run over DSL.

Agreed!

However, Lchiu has a TCL landline as he says in his post on the previous page. His internet connection is via TCL cable which is separate from the landline cable AFAIK.

My above procedure is also suitable for people with wireless connections, but definitely NOT if you are using DSL with only one phone line.

lchiu7

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#79683 25-Jul-2007 21:59

OK - that makes sense. Basically what you're saying is

1. Disconnect the external wires from the street to my phones in the house (so prise open the grey box and disconnect the wires). That would require a friendly tech since the box is locked down (well I could open it but it would be obvious later)

2. Connect one end of the Linksys box to my router/switch.

3. Connect the phone end of the Linksys to an existing phone outlet in the wall. Then since all the phone lines are in parallel (well something like that) it's as if I connected one phone to the Linksys and used double or triple jacks to connect other phones to it.

4. Get somebody to provide VoIP service like WXC

Terminate my TCL landline bill

Worth considering anyway since even without power, while the phones wouldn't work (the regular ones would) I still have enough cellphones in the house not to be isolated.

Any issues with active alarm monitoring?

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grant_k

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#79686 25-Jul-2007 22:11

lchiu7: OK - that makes sense. Basically what you're saying is

...
3. Connect the phone end of the Linksys to an existing phone outlet in the wall. Then since all the phone lines are in parallel (well something like that) it's as if I connected one phone to the Linksys and used double or triple jacks to connect other phones to it.

Exactly. Indeed, all the phone jacks are wired in parallel across the one pair of wires.

lchiu7: Any issues with active alarm monitoring?

Now... it depends on exactly what type of active alarm monitoring you have.

If it's the DTMF type where your alarm panel calls the monitoring centre and sends DTMF tones, then no problem at all.

However, if it uses an Analog Modem, you could be in for problems. For example:

The modem in MySky works over VFX, but the modem in my laptop doesn't. Analog modems are a try-it-and-see situation with VFX.

I hope that helps.

Cheers,
Grant.

gchiu

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#79697 25-Jul-2007 23:14

Having a VOIP line does have it's advantages ... when the landline went down recently due to some poor connection outside, I was able to switch over to my VFX line for the week it took to track the problem down.

We pretty much exclusively use wireless phones now, but this method of wiring up the house by cutting the connection to the Telco means we can place our wireless phones anywhere instead of near the VOIP router as I had planned.

TinyTim

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#79715 26-Jul-2007 07:38

jpollock: 3) Switching costs are lower in VoIP, because conceivably your customers could talk amongst themselves once address resolution has happened.

Even this isn't a given when all costs are taken into account. In fact it seems the only consensus on cost saving is the reduced operating cost from only having to run one network. If they do in fact turn off the legacy PSTN.

TinyTim

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#79717 26-Jul-2007 07:54

My opinion on the original question...

geek4me: Does anyone know if/when TelstraClear are planning to offer voip services. A search for voip on their website produces 0 hits. I have TelstraClear cable and am looking at what voip services are available. Xnet, iTalk and even Skype are contenders all now offering local voip phone numbers in NZ. How far away are TCL in offering the same on their cable network and what would the charges be - perhaps someone from TCL would care to comment?

I would guess it will be ready in time for naked DSL so they can provide voice services along with broadband over Telecom's copper. And I would guess it will also be made available on their cable network at some stage so they can sell phone services to those who get cable without the phone line.

Also you'll probably never see it marketed as VoIP. They'd want it to be a PSTN-quality service and would want to avoid the baggage that VoIP has when people think voice over internet.

jpollock

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#79728 26-Jul-2007 09:33

TinyTim:
jpollock: 3) Switching costs are lower in VoIP, because conceivably your customers could talk amongst themselves once address resolution has happened.

Even this isn't a given when all costs are taken into account. In fact it seems the only consensus on cost saving is the reduced operating cost from only having to run one network. If they do in fact turn off the legacy PSTN.

Actually, I disagree.

How much does a class 5 switch cost compared to a Cisco data switch? Which one has a lower starting point and scales better? The separation of call control signalling and the speech traffic, allows them to be routed independently. Even better, once the call is setup, the core network is able to remove itself from the signalling path entirely. Can't do that with ISUP. That's a huge savings in call control CPU load.

Savings... Hardware : Lack of DSPs in the network. You've made your customers purchase the DSP. No more linecards. No more line card sharing. No more picking up a phone and not getting dialtone because it's 4PM and everyone is calling everyone else. Even better, that's a whole wall of patch panels gone.

DSPs pt 2: Voicemail systems. How much of your VM system is line cards to handle an incoming E1? How cheap are they compared to a Gig-E card?

If you run two networks, then yes, it's more expensive. It's even going to be more expensive in the short term because you have to train your staff to manage the VoIP hardware/software and understand the IP network. It's risky. However, if you don't, your customers are going to move to someone who has.

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jpollock

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#79735 26-Jul-2007 10:11

Fraktul: Telstra Clear have been doing things on the Corporate side for awhile, it just has not been successful at many levels.

I've heard the same about TNZ. :) Doesn't stop them winning the business though. I've been hearing about problems with:
1) Cisco handsets - crashing software loads.
2) Inability to get fiber to the business on schedule.
3) Poor project management.

In fact, the one contract I heard where TNZ won over TCL for VoIP, it was because TCL said, "We can't meet that schedule". Then again TNZ couldn't either, but they were smart enough to not admit it. :)

Anyways, that a roll-out has problems doesn't mean the tech is bad. It doesn't even mean that the project is a failure! I've been involved in many, many projects for telco's and each one has been a failure for one reason or another. However, after the project is live, and you went to the customer and asked, "So, do you like it? Was it worth the hassle?" They would say "Hell yes!". Well, perhaps not so positively, that would mean they were happy with the service, and they can't let on about that!

So, how many businesses are turning off their VoIP systems and going back to POTS?

jpollock:

Compelling reasons....

1) VoIP has lower infrastructure costs. No DSP's required, your customers pay for their own.
2) VoIP doesn't require obtaining wholesale access to Telecom's analog network, only the DSL network.
3) Switching costs are lower in VoIP, because conceivably your customers could talk amongst themselves once address resolution has happened.
4) The traffic represented by voice is miniscule compared to your data traffic.
5) VoIP hardware is cheaper than a regular carrier switch.
6) VoIP offers a migration path to fixed/mobile convergence, including such very cool things as femto-cells and UMA.
7) Once it's a VoIP call, integration with international VoIP wholesalers is cheap and easy. The wholesale cost of international calls is something like .1c/min (probably less).
8) The software is simpler too. More happens in the edges of the network. This results in failures being more localised.
9) Service creation. It moves service creation out of the Telco tower and into general IT/WWW development. Compare SIP (runs on top of HTTP) with SS7.
10) Endpoints get more control of their calls. How would you like a tool on your PC that can re-direct calls to your mobile phone? How about writing that tool yourself?
11) You are selling a lot of VoIP lines to your business customers including government departments.

There are more, but I'm tired now. :)

1) you still have to transcode at the telco side if the call is getting handed over to another network which is not supporting the codec transcode on the customer CPE.
2) it requires wholesale access to the data network or building your own, either way you need access to network be it data or analog.
3) Your terminology is a bit confused given this is circuit switched vs packet.
4) But a far higher pps rate meaning extra load on your network devices vs data.
5) Sure
6) Ditto.
7) I wouldn't say easy, maybe easier - generally the quality is somewhat more dubious also . Successful call terminations on a cheap calling card vs TCNZ would be case in point..
8) SS7 and TDM are pretty mature compared to most VoIP implementations it could be argued. As to the localization that is very much dependant on the network design. If you only have one STM interconnect with TCNZ for UBS/UBA traffic and this falls over I would argue this is far more centralized than TCNZ analog service?
9) Woah, ok...and so you need a whole new set of skills for SIP and SS7. SIP isn't exactly one easy RFC and SS7 will be around for awhile yet.
10) Yup, also makes things more complex for end users to some degree also. Flexibility and complexity often go hand in hand.
11) Great

Not saying I disagree with you, just saying you need a balanced argument.

1) Yes.. However, you won't have to do it for international calls (you are probably already using a VoIP wholesaler for those). Businesses are switching to VoIP, so you don't need to transcode there either. Right now, I would say that you'll probably only have to transcode to get access to the other local carriers. You won't have to convert between codecs in the middle of a pure voip call, that should be handled by the endpoints negotiating at the start of the call. If it isn't, you're doing something really dumb.
2) True, but you don't need access to _both_, which is where we are now. If you need access to the TNZ analog network to offer voice, you are restricted in that you can only charge what they let you charge. Don't need access? See WorldXChange for an example of what you can achieve.
3) Circuit switched means that call control logic is "inline" for the duration of the call. In the VoIP world, the call control portion can be torn down if it is no longer needed, allowing the endpoints to talk once address resolution has happened. Basically, if you aren't going to bill for it, you don't need to know about it.
4) Yep. However, everything's heading towards ethernet anyways. :) (Yes, a generalisation... I'm prone to over-generalising)

7) I don't see why quality would suffer. You get what you pay for, and the wholesalers are (I understand) using data networks internally already. Has anyone else noticed that international calling from NZ to Canada (on TNZ) tends to be simplex? Worse quality on VoIP?!?! HAH!
8) SS7/TDM are mature. The software involved in charging and routing is not.
9) Needs a bit more here.... So let's go for it!
Definitely easier. You should see the code for our INAP stack. There are only 4 people (out of 87 engineers) that I would trust touch that code. ISUP - 1 engineer. ASN.1 processing? Ouch. It's vicious, and evil. I may not like SIP's approach to allowing everyone to write their own extensions, but I have to admit it's easy to parse and understand. Any university student can write a SIP stack. The code is easy to verify, unlike the pointer math that goes on in ASN.1 decoders. Heck, we've got devs who write HTTP servers into their processes for debugging interfaces!

Once you make it easy to enter the market, there is both an explosion in available experience, and a downword pressure on the cost to develop. Basically, VoIP is going to commoditize my skill-set. I can either get ahead of the curve, or I can become the POTS equivalent of another COBOL programmer working on the Y2K problem. Profitable, but not much future in it.

I'm expecting to see a market where class 5 switches aren't sold into the first world after about 5 years.
11) Yes, imagine being able to get access to all your desk-phone speed dials from the phone in your home office. You don't have to give up anything when working from home. Sweet.

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Fraktul

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#79797 26-Jul-2007 15:25

1) Maybe, what portion of your calls are to other NZ providers though - the majority I would suggest.
2) You have been able to use VoIP as your primary line for some time without purchasing analog/ISDN PSTN services, when did Ihug offer VoIP services over Wired Country or Callplus start offering VoIP services over Vector/TCL - years ago. They were just not competent at doing so.
3) Heh, /me throws call access control out the window etc, useless crap that was.
4) The point is that VoIP is pretty hungry on processing power getting it switched and routed through your network while treated appropriately as a VoIP CoS - far more so that best efforts data transmissions which make up the bulk of internet traffic currently. That the traffic it represents is smaller is not really of much consequence since your TDM traffic will rarely be on the same circuits anyhow.
7) I can only speak from personal experience - its a mixed bag really but generally I would still expect VoIP carriers to be of a lower quality currently.
9) Sure, but in the mean time you need people with both skill sets and it adds complexity and expense in the short term for providers. Things obviously get better down the track and as you say you will see a lot more people with working knowledge of SIP/H323 out there in the future but the relative ease to understand something does not always equate into understanding all its facets.

TinyTim

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#79810 26-Jul-2007 16:01

jpollock:
TinyTim: Even this isn't a given when all costs are taken into account. In fact it seems the only consensus on cost saving is the reduced operating cost from only having to run one network. If they do in fact turn off the legacy PSTN.

Actually, I disagree.

There are suggestions that for a major telco, especially one migrating from a legacy TDM network, the costs of a VoIP network/NGN is just as much as a TDM network. Perhaps they're simply warning telcos to be more conservative with their VoIP business plans, I don't know. (On the other hand someone who sets up a small competing service on an existing broadband network - like VFX - then there's no question, VoIP is the only way to go.)

For a large telco, you need your routers and switches, you need your gateways and gateway controllers (soft switches), your servers, your MSANs or your IADs. The cost of writing off your old network won't help. It all adds up. You've still got the same transmission costs because there's no saving there through VoIP. And even if these are cheaper to buy, operating them is still expensive. There are also pitfalls - what happens if the gear turns out not to be carrier grade? This causes expensive down time.

There's not much good stuff that talks about this available on the 'net but here is one example (granted it's a few years old):

http://ftp.t1.org/multi/VoIP_Telecom%2003_Shah.ppt - slide 9

ReaperZ

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#79912 26-Jul-2007 23:14

i just thought of something ! during power cuts you cant use a VOIP phone lol

grant_k

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#79913 26-Jul-2007 23:19

ReaperZ: i just thought of something ! during power cuts you cant use a VOIP phone lol

This has been discussed many times before...

That's why you need a cellphone as an emergency backup. How often does the power fail in most cities?

Only once or twice per year at our house in Auckland, although it can be a lot more in rural areas.

A very minor inconvenience which is well and truly outweighed by the benefits of VoIP.

Nety

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#79920 27-Jul-2007 06:21

You can also cover that to some extent by running a UPS.

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#79938 27-Jul-2007 09:40

ReaperZ: i just thought of something ! during power cuts you cant use a VOIP phone lol

That's why I have UPS here... Since we work from home and I run a mail server I have a large UPS (60 minutes) for server, routers, switche and cordless phones, plus a smaller one for the iMac and some lights. If needed the iMac can be shutdown, extending the life of the smaller UPS. And if the server goes down the large UPS can last a bit longer.

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