The Coming Death of Cheap VoIP?
Anyone who thinks that VoIP services for long distance and international calling are going to continue growing unabated is sadly mistaken. Anyone who watched the battles in the late 1990s between independent DSL providers and local and regional Bell phone companies knows that these one-time monopolists can play hardball with the best of them, and this isn't about to change.
What I see happening is that the phone companies will eventually own VoIP. Taking over the business is a long process, but it has slowly begun here, and in Canada it's in full swing. The approach will be two-pronged: First the telcos will lock down their networks and phone numbers; then they'll promote the 911 connectivity issue. If you think your public utilities commission will do anything about it, forget it.
We're seeing the drama unfold openly in Canada now. The first salvo was when Telus, the biggest phone company in western Canada, told Shaw Cable that it wouldn't let the cable company implement its VoIP phone service to cable subscribers over the Telus network. This was followed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission regulators telling the VoIP folks that they must have the same 911 services as normal phone companies.
The telcos know that the 911 bugaboo will eventually break the backs of the VoIP folks. Because of the nature of VoIP and the possibility of taking your router to Europe and still making local calls in Baltimore, this situation cannot be fixed. One or two pieces of legislation regarding 911 services and public safety, just as in Canada, and VoIP will be on the ropes.
I was amused by the press reports in Canada regarding the 911 issue. As soon as the regulators cracked down, the next press report was about how getting rural customers onto high-speed access, once on the back burner, was now a priority in the country. How much more blatant can these people be?
Now the dirty tricks come into play. I'm certain we can beat the Canadians at this game. While independent VoIP vendors may get smashed by the obvious, there are still little initiatives such as Skype, a popular, free, PC-based phone service that people are using to communicate, especially with folks overseas (see http://go.pcmag.com/skype1 ). A few tweaks, and it's effectively a free phone.
This sort of traffic will eventually be sniffed out by the telcos on their networks and quashed or made unusable. When you sign up for a DSL account, you'll find in the license agreement that you will not be allowed to use the system for VoIP (unless, of course, the VoIP is provided by the DSL/phone company). The cable companies will then be given access to the telcos' networks (for a fee), if they agree to crush the independent use of VoIP and Skype.
This will be reminiscent of the license for home DSL that says you cannot put a server on the network. In other words, you buy a 1Mb connection but cannot actually use it. You need to get the more expensive "commercial" installation that is, in fact, no different except that it costs more. Anyone who attempts to put a server on a home DSL line soon finds the phone companies pinging it to determine the use, and then disconnecting it or warning the customer.
It seems to me that if you buy a 1Mb connection that isn't metered, then you should be able to use it as you please. The telcos will defensibly argue that business rates are higher because businesses use the connection more. So why should the home owner pay as much? You can't win this debate. And you'll soon discover that you can't win any of the debates. These guys have been doing this too long to roll over.
The future of VoIP is clear. No matter who invented or thought of it first, the telcos will own it. You'll be getting your VoIP from them eventually. They'll buy out the more pesky competitors and trick or ruin the others. A few cooperative small fry will be allowed to exist as tokens to show the world that there is an open and competitive marketplace.
It will be fun to watch how the networks will suddenly all interconnect just fine. And, more important, how the 911 debate will wane with all sorts of telco initiatives that will solve the problem as if by magic.
For you and me, the end result will be the same old weird phone bill with its strange charges and fees. But somehow, we'll actually be paying more than we do now!
John Dvorak - PC MAGAZINE
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