Migrating from the PSTN to the VSTN
All this talk of telcos developing a VoIP-based "Skype Killer" has me thinking about the future. It's likely that the United States will be among the last holdouts to migrate from its Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN) to a VoIP Standard Telephony Network. (VSTN). If you don't think it's going to be a challenge, look at the decades-long battle to switch from analog to digital TV -- and we still won't be all digital until early 2009, assuming there's not a last minute panic to extend the process further.
Why do I say VSTN rather than IP? Carriage of voice akin to the (legacy) PSTN is going to have some specific regulatory and public safety requirements attached before we pull the last plug on the last black handset with an RJ-11 in it. There is likely to be some sort of minimum service requirements for voice quality and reliability reaching into (and hopefully exceeding) the "five 9s" of the legacy PSTN.
While the Voice 2.0 crowd says "voice is just another app," it is and it isn't. It is an application that we expect for the call to go through, regardless of potential DDOS or SPIT attacks. It is an application where we expect to be connected to a first responder when we dial 911 and we have come to expect that under most cases the first responder will be able to look at our phone number and know what physical address we are calling from (A standard the cellular industry seems to weasel around compared to the ones consumer VoIP providers have been held to when it comes to location-based positioning).
The VSTN will need some hardcore interoperability standards as well. I don't mean to put the SBC people out of business, but when carriers talk about having to transcode between SIP "standards," brother, we have got things wrong. Carriers, equipment manufacturers, and software vendors need to agree to a set of universally accepted basic standards to make handling voice fast and efficient in an IP environment while delivering a flavor of service equal to (and preferably better than) today's PSTN. And they should be hard core STANDARDS rather than some of the fuzziness that has taken place in the IMS world.
Today, layers of software and services are being used to provide VoIP interoperability and that's fine but I can't help but think that a little simplification on the front end would get us to a faster-running, more reliable, and more secure VSTN than the current way we're running VoIP.
- Doug
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By Shawn Chute, EVP of Sutus | Posted 2:32pm | May 14, 2008
The North American communications market is essentially a conservative one that has been slow to embrace new technology for a number of reasons. Some of this conservatism has been because of the lack of true competitiveness and the role of incumbent local exchange carriers with vested interests, some has been because of the lack of sufficient standards that embrace the entire concept of a VoIP trunk (ie security, signaling protocol (like SIP), and voice encoding), as it relates to customers, providers and equipment manufacturers.
Whatever the complexities of a new communications infrastructure, it needs to be as simple or simpler to provision, install, and use as a PSTN phone line. A new VSTN service must provide not just equivalent service at a competitive cost, but to a perceptibly better service at a lower cost to be a compelling argument for both service providers and their customers. A recent example of how new technology did not pan out in the North American market, is the limited acceptance of ISDN digital phone service. While successful in other markets, in North America multiple standards, the lack of compatible equipment, and the lack of user demand for new services, and incumbent practices all mounted to drive North American ISDN into a limited data and enterprise trunking market.
VoIP has been successful as a VSTN in both the enterprise market where network reliability is assured by skilled IT design and management and 5 9’s is a matter of course. It has been successful to a lesser extent in the large residential market where network simplicity has meant a a low cost of customer penetration with feature rich and low cost services. Historically VoIP services followed the lead of data communications and resisted the regulation that is demanded of a public communications network. E911 issues remain, the deaf are rarely provided with ways to connect their TDD devices, and law enforcement and homeland security requirements have not been designed in. In addition, the fact that the backbone for IP communications is often provided by an ISP independent of an Internet Telephony Service Provider (ITSP), has meant that voice quality is often at the mercy of changing ISP policies, infrastructure, and customer load.
These additional issues need to be solved for a VSTN to be successful. In most cases there are solutions that could be deployed for all of these issues, but without the motivation from a single government authority or delegated standards body the potential plurality of solutions will not likely enable a VSTN.
There is no doubt that a single set of standards for IP phones, IP-PBXs, carriers, and services would be a huge benefit to enabling IP telephony and richer services to the larger markets and transitioning to a VSTN. There is early work by standards and industry organizations that has been completed. The IETF had defined a signaling standard, the TIA has defined IP telephone standards and recommendations for 911. The SIP Forum has completed the first version of SIP Connect, an IP-PBX to Service Provider set of recommendations. The question is will industry follow, or be compelled to follow these standards?
Today communications equipment suppliers are embracing those standards, and where they encounter multiple standards in the marketplace they do their best to embrace all of them to deliver exceptional communications value to their customers. Simplicity of installation and the enablement of services without detailed technical knowledge though can be a stumbling point. In the small business market in particular, skilled IT professionals are expensive and hard to find. In fact this market is so large, it is doubtful whether there will ever be sufficient numbers of skilled IT professionals to service all of this market regardless of cost, whether those professionals were to work for the VSTN service providers or the end customers or both. Here in this market, the most innovative equipment suppliers and service providers are building innovative and intelligent management systems that select pre-integrated operational profiles and an understanding of the end customer business use case to ensure proper interoperation. This approach allows the VSTN to emerge now, taking advantage of standards and recommendations that are useful, mandated, or evolve.
Shawn Chute, EVP of Sutus
By doug | Posted 11:18pm | May 21, 2008
I hate to haggle here, but we're going to have to go to a VSTN sooner or later for no other reason than carriers are going to want to get out of the business of supporting their legacy equipment in another 10 years.
By Jon Paul Janze (Product Director, Sutus) | Posted 9:28pm | May 26, 2008
I absolutely agree that the ‘VSTN’ will eventually happen; for two reasons, one, as you point out, carriers don’t want the headaches of supporting their existing legacy equipment (although arguably, they will simply be supporting a new kind of equipment with its own potential headaches) and secondly, because of the additional REAL value-added services that only a VSTN can provide at a reasonable cost.
I believe however, that the process will take time and will be highly dependant upon an agreed upon set of standards that are MANDATED (either governmental or industry imposed) that can ensure QoS, security and interoperability between networks and vendors.