IP on everything
I’m biased – my company is also a dealer for Zultys, but the stuff is really cool, and it works. From 1 – 10,000 seats, this is an awesome communication platform that is ahead of the curve in so many ways.
I’ll get into those “ways” in future posts, but wanted to stick something up, as they’ve just released version 4.0 of their software/firmware, and it rocks.
Click HERE for more info.
Cheers,
David
A topic near and dear to my heart and wallet, being a Canuck myself. Data rates up here are, well, ridiculous. Third World, in fact . . .
A quick jaunt around the ‘net shows me the $40 I pay Telus for 8Mb of data (which gets chewed up in nothing but email) would get me 200Mb with Vodafone in New Zealand (more if you factor exchange rates), and in the U.S. (the first carrier I checked) I would get UNLIMITED data for $40.
I’ve been meaning to post something about this for a long time, but have just recently started blogging, and ironically got a phone call just today from Telus Mobility’s ‘customer retention’ department, asking me how things were going. They do this when you’re not on a contract (didn’t hear from anyone for 3 years before my last contract expired July 07), to try and ensure you’re not about to jump ship.
After 2 minutes talking with the rep, he was agreeing with me that the data rates were way too high in Canada, but there was nothing he could do. He DID try to get me onto a different voice plan though, as they all do, because I’m still on a grandfathered Clearnet plan with per-second billing, caller-id and voicemail. Those were the days, eh? Funny how all the cell companies are only able to count in increments of 60 seconds – must be too hard on their 286′s.
What’s the real story here? IMHO, the Directors at all the Canadian telco’s are milking us dry for short-term gain. What they don’t seem to grasp (again, IMHO) is it WILL backfire and result in long-term pain. Innovation and infrastructure upgrades have taken a back seat to high data prices, strictly in the interest of making the bottom line look better so the stock price moves in the right direction. Mark my words, it’s going to hit them between the eyes someday soon in the next couple of years.
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So what’s the real problem here? The rest of the world (most notably the elephant to the south) have leap-frogged us and are providing better service for less money (see above). It used to be because of Canadian geography (mostly) we had the most advanced telecom infrastructure in the world. Now all we have are de facto monopolies effectively suppressing mobile data use by keeping the prices high, and not reinvesting in infrastructure to support lower data rates (highly speculative on my part, but I believe this has some morsel of truth in it).
Michael Geist, a professor at the University of Ottawa has been leading the charge on this very topic in the media and blogosphere, and much more can be read on his blog – with a timely post just today. Industry Canada is forcing the issue somewhat with a portion of the wireless spectrum being reserved for new entrants (sorry Ted).
Will this be enough? Hard to say right now. With the iPhone coming, there is sure to be a LOT of people who will actually want to USE the device for surfing the ‘net (heaven forbid). Rogers won’t sell very many unless they come up with more attractive data pricing. Another very important point is mobile numbers are now portable between all carriers (land-line, wireless, and VoIP).
Last point before I hit the hay – why hasn’t government done something about this before? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact Telus is giving them $35 UNLIMITED data plans (or so I’m told). No conflict there (I love a good conspiracy theory).
Having just been to SMBSummit in Dallas, the love that was expressed among the Koolaid drinkers for Home Server was in my view, missing a critical component – transparency from Microsoft on data corruption issues.
I purchased WHS a few months ago, and have it running right beside me with 2 500GB enterprise Seagate SATA drives. I was also brave enough to install WSS3.0 on it – it works, but haven’t played with it much.
In fact, I’m afraid to play with it. Every time I do, the WHS icon in my system tray turns yellow (or red) to tell me there’s a problem. Invariably, one or both of the drive volumes are ‘failing’, and I need to run a disk repair from the WHS console to get it back to good health (which also requires a reboot – not so automatic).
Pain in the patootie, and it doesn’t do much to build my confidence in the product.
In Dallas, the WHS presentation by Microsoft and one of the partners had several people for Q&A lined up at the mic. The potential of the product for SOHO clients is obvious, and everyone wants to know more. When I stood up and asked the presenters if they had experienced the ‘failing volume’ issue, there was a pause, shuffling of feet, sips of koolaid all around, and then a ‘sure we have – no big deal, just run a repair’. OK. Every day?
Paul Thurrott has expressed his concerns as well in his Windows Weekly podcast on more than 1 occasion, and his views are bang-on. Microsoft has to do more to represent the product properly. Right now, they are presenting the product as client-ready, and droves of partners are heading out to sell the stuff to unsuspecting clients, not necessarily knowing there are data corruption problems. Can anyone say ‘beta-test’?
At the vendor night in Dallas, I stopped to speak with the Home Server folks, and when I asked about when the issue was going to be fixed, I received a ‘huh? what problem’ response.
I’ve heard through acquaintances in the industry that beta’s of the upcoming Power Pack do fix the issues, and the problem really only affects multi-drive systems (which is kind of the ‘big feature’ thing anyway), but I’d much rather see Microsoft step forward publicly and ‘fess up. Clamming up when there is a problem with your solution doesn’t send a very good message.
It’s a cool product, and one that I sincerely hope will shed all of it’s data / drive corruption issues with the upcoming Power Pack, but having used it personally for a few months, I’m not ready to recommend it to anyone who has my phone number.
Step up Microsoft. It’s the right thing to do.
The news of an 18-month-old boy dying because their VoIP line was registered to another city (Toronto) is tragic. Unfortunately, due to the reality of the technology, and the relative ignorance of residential customers, something like this was bound to happen.
I’ve been using VoIP at home for a few years now (I enjoyed getting that $0 balance bill from Bell). When we switched to VoIP at home, 911 service was a question my wife had. Being in the business of selling, installing and maintaining IP Telephony systems for business, I’m definitely not your average VoIP consumer, and knew all the answers to give her – not that this totally satisfied her, but I’m the one who pays the bill 
If you’re considering VoIP for your home, here are some issues to consider:
- Ensure your ITSP has a 911 plan that makes sense to you.
- Ensure the correct address is registered with your ITSP (this will be YOUR responsibility).
- Ensure your ITSP is NOT a fly-by-night operation – there are FCC and CRTC regulations in place, but the fact that VoIP is location agnostic (both for the service provider and for the customer), means you must adopt some diligence in choosing a good provider. In other words, DON’T go with the lowest price, just because the price tag is attractive.
- Ensure you have a reliable Internet connection. VoIP is not a done-deal for just any location. Flaky DSL and Cable modem connections are not unusual for a lot of people – being over 6km from my C.O. made my DSL unreliable, and I’ve recently switched to Rogers Cable for my Internet (as much as it pains me, but that’s another story). Huge numbers of people in Canada still don’t have access to high-speed Internet. Using satellite based Internet? Forget it. Too much latency – see the next point.
- Quality of Service (QoS). If you want your phone conversations to sound good when little Johnny fires up BitTorrent or YouTube, you’ll need to do one of the following:
– Buy an all-in-one VoIP/Router device from your ITSP and let them tweak the voice priority settings (assume the first little while will NOT be optimal).
– Determine if your existing router has QoS functionality and turn it on – again, this will likely require some tweaking (I have a Linksys WRT54GL with DD-WRT firmware). Another option is putting a QoS device between your router and modem (see THIS). If you have no idea what I’m talking about see the previous point, or the next point.
– HIRE someone to install and set it up for you. Your chosen ITSP should have recommended installers. If the installer that shows up is not presentable and competent, ask them to leave and get another reference.
Some final points:
There is a trade-off here – you may save money on your phone bill, but you should expect to be out of service once in a while and use a cell phone as a backup. Don’t have a cell phone? Don’t get VoIP, period.
Set expectations with your household – there ARE going to be service issues and interruptions, especially when you first set up. If you gloss over this point with your better half, there may be some nights spent in the dog house.
Finally, INVEST in decent equipment and a UPS (uninterrupted power supply) to keep your Internet connection and phones working during a brown- or blackout. ITSP’s won’t necessarily point this out to you – they are a business, and the more complicated the process is, the less likely they will get you as a customer. Buyer beware.
A good rule of thumb is to budget at least what you project to save in phone bills over the next 6-12 months in good equipment (say $250 – $500 with a good UPS, router, VoIP ATA, QoS device, etc.).
VoIP is NOT free – this is a myth. It is a wonderful technology and someday soon all voice communication will be touched by it (if it’s not already). It IS a LOT more mature than it was even 1 year ago, and the tragic event in Calgary will surely make ITSP’s re-double their efforts to inform and re-inform their customers of their responsibility to make sure 911 contact data is accurate.
If after reading the above, you’re comfortable making the switch, great. If not, stick with a land-line.
I will post more on IP telephony and VoIP in the coming weeks, with a bigger focus on business use – the benefits of the technology there are far more than saving $ on a phone bill.
Cheers,
David
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