The FCC's Sneak Attack on VOIP... and the Real Issue
How about a well thought out, deep and complete transformation plan with requirements on what we want at the end of the day.
Kevin is right in saying Transformation is key. But it's more than thinking about it in terms of applications. We need the big plan. The transformation of a majority RBOC owned PTN to a "best effort network" the Internet owned by who? Let look at what ownership really means. I'm sure no one wants to really have this conversation right now. Ownership means responsibilty and burden. At the end of the day it is really not about applications and software. It's about the physical plant and the resources needed to maintain it 24/7. These plant costs are huge and not shared equally by all today. Let's not forget that a lot of the last mile is aerial and provisoned by the RBOCs. When a pole goes down the RBOCs are there to put it back up. Their nickel and not a penny from the VOIP software developer. Take the voice application away and where does the nickel come from? The problem is we don't even know who the future major owners/stakeholders of the future network will be.
Let's not also forget that the assumption is the old network needs to be still in place for connectivety at the moment (with moment being at least 10 years) to carry a large percentage of the last mile connectivety may it be POTS or VOIP during the transformation. We can't move forward without a plan to remove the RBOCs as the major stakeholders of key plant and hardware including the present assumed responsibilties they have if that is what we really want. This removal of burden needs to happen along the way of transformation. Why should all the burden be on them until the end or when we see light? If we're not careful at sometime during the transformation the burden may be to much for them to absorb and could cutoff their oxygen. Then what? We are starting to see them separate the old PTN away from their new Internet businesses. Makes it easier to jump off if they want to.
If we don't get a plan together soon we could wake up one morning and the assumed physical networked during transformation may not be there. Anyone working with these folks are feeling this already. It's not the same. If you were them would you invest anything into that side of the business if you had insight of the future and the current market conditions? Neither will they. They will harvest the PTN crop as long as they can.
Word on the street is that a lot of smart/experienced RBOC provisioning folks are leaving next month (way more than were anticipated)because of the doomed future of the RBOCs and the attractive packages they are being offered. The train is already in motion. Where is the plan?
The FCC's Sneak Attack on VOIP... and the Real Issue.
"As I said at the FCC VOIP hearing last week, the real issue is the transformation from the Internet as a subset of telecom to telecom as a subset of the Internet. That means treating voice as an application that can run on any platform, not as the platform itself. The regulatory status of VOIP is just the tip of the iceberg." [Werblog]
7:14:21 AM 
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