--On Friday, February 20, 2004 8:55 AM +0000 WipeOut <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:I agree that a Telco can go down, what I was trying to say what that there are more factors that would affect internet communications reliability than a standard Telco.. Also a Telco will usually have control over the end to end communications path where the internet will not provide that control to the VoIP provider..
The way I see it VoIP services across the internet (in the short term anyway) will never be as reliable as the standard telco provided PSTN lines.. The main reason being the nature of the Internet..
So I think the question "Can you bet you business on it?" actually needs
to be asked in a differnt way, " Can your business afford to be out of
communication for the an unknown period of time for the sake of possibly
cheaper phone calls?".. You are really the only one who can answer that...
Well, even the most established telcos can go down once in a great while. Heck, a backhoe can dig up the wires. These things happen. What I am asking is is VoIP service reasonably reliable? Does it go down for extended periods daily? Weekly? Does it sort of stop working for a few minutes here and there during the day? Does the sound quality remain reasonable consistent? Has it progressed from the experimental stage, or is it still to be considered a toy? And, do VoIP providers support their customers?
My personal experience with VoIP in our business is that it has been great, we did not use a VoIP provider and we have a small operation, I setup an Asterisk Server with a BRI ISDN line and we all work from home using broadband internet connections to connect to the server.. The loss of connectivity between the home users and the PBX was certainly more frequent than the donwtime of the ISDN line, usually due to the internet connection falling over on the broadband lines..
Why not give it a trial run and go from there? It will not cost you anything to setup a test system on an old desktop and test it for your application.. then you will have first hand knowledge of the reliability and quaility to expect..
I realise that you are not finding the answers you are looking for but its like the people who come onto the list and ask things like " How many users will my XYZ system handle?".. The answer is not one that can be given becasue there are too many factors.. A test environment is the only way to get the answers you are after.. I have been involved in VoIP for nearly 2 years now and Iam still finding things that influence the performance and quality of VoIP implimentations..
If you want to know more about my setup feel free to contact me off list and I can explain more..
Later..
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