nanog mailing list archives
Re: potpourri (Re: Clearwire May Block VoIP Competitors )
From: "Jay R. Ashworth" <jra () baylink com>
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 15:00:07 -0400
On Fri, Apr 01, 2005 at 09:54:40PM +0000, Paul Vixie wrote:
jra () baylink com ("Jay R. Ashworth") writes:There are, as I implied in another post, many unobvious end-to-end systemic characteristics that make the PSTN the PSTN that Internet Telephony isn't going to be able to fulfill for some time, if ever, due to the differing fundamental engineering assumptions that underly it.i, as a user, only use the PSTN for its reach, not any of its differing fundamental engineering assumptions, most of which i'd challenge if i cared, but i don't care. internet-as-disintermediator means clearchannel can't prevent podcasting, newspapers can't prevent online auctions and online news websites, politicians can't prevent bloggers, and sears can't prevent amazon... but as long as we have the FCC and NANP and an investment-protection policy, PSTN *can* prevent voip, and they'll use selective enforcement of 911 as one of the tools to do so. which is why i predict that we'll see more computers doing voice, using domain names rather than "phone numbers" for rendezvous.
And yet (this is drifting off topic from Internetworking into the larger realm of networking as a whole; feel free to tune out, folks), I'm not sure that's entirely a good thing. Subsidy business models have long been the means by which those functions of the commercial telecommunications industry which were not direct retail items to end users were funded, and if all that revenue is siphoned off, then those -- important and necessary -- functions will have to be paid for by *someone*. The analogy I usually use here is to "cheaper Canadian drugs". Yeah, they're cheaper. But they wouldn't stay that way long if a statistically significant fraction of the US started bying their drugs from Canadian sources, and it wouldn't have anything to do with regulations, at all. The declining subsidy from consumer snapshot film to the other parts of the film photographic industry as digital cameras take over is another good one. Short version is: not all the things an industry does are immediately obvious, especially to civilians, and it's good to put some thought into what they are before blindly encouraging them to go out of business. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth jra () baylink com Designer Baylink RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24 St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274 If you can read this... thank a system administrator. Or two. --me
Current thread:
- Re: Positioning technology, (continued)
- Re: Positioning technology Robert M. Enger (Apr 01)
- Re: potpourri (Re: Clearwire May Block VoIP Competitors ) David Barak (Apr 01)
- Re: potpourri (Re: Clearwire May Block VoIP Competitors ) Jay R. Ashworth (Apr 01)
- Re: potpourri (Re: Clearwire May Block VoIP Competitors ) Jay R. Ashworth (Apr 01)
- Re: potpourri (Re: Clearwire May Block VoIP Competitors ) Jay R. Ashworth (Apr 01)
- Re: potpourri (Re: Clearwire May Block VoIP Competitors ) Paul Vixie (Apr 01)
- Re: potpourri (Re: Clearwire May Block VoIP Competitors ) Randy Bush (Apr 01)
- Re: potpourri (Re: Clearwire May Block VoIP Competitors ) Dan Hollis (Apr 01)
- Re: potpourri (Re: Clearwire May Block VoIP Competitors ) Peter Corlett (Apr 02)
- Re: potpourri (Re: Clearwire May Block VoIP Competitors ) Owen DeLong (Apr 01)
- Re: potpourri (Re: Clearwire May Block VoIP Competitors ) Paul Vixie (Apr 01)
- Message not available
- Re: potpourri (Re: Clearwire May Block VoIP Competitors ) Jay R. Ashworth (Apr 03)