by Beau Sharbrough
7 July 2005
This article was originally published in Ancestry Magazine. When they post it
online, I'll post a link here. -Beau 9 Jan 2006
In late 2000, I did some work for a computer distributor headquartered in Overland Park, KS. They had regional sales offices in Atlanta, LA, Chicago, Connecticut, and Dallas. In early 2001, they decided to connect them with a voice-over-internet-protocol network, or VOIP network, for short. It sounded cool, until you tried to watch a video conference or talk on a phone. The thing kept cutting out, as the broadband connection dropped packets. Like many cool technical initiatives, it just wasn’t ready for everyday use. Note: while VOIP is a nice typographic abbreviation, and satifies my jones for brevity, it’s not really an acronym. In my experience, people pronounce it “voice over IP” instead of saying voip. I’m sure that the kids will say it soon enough, because it’s actually one of those funny words that they like to say over and over.
Recently, I tried out Vonage, “the broadband phone company.” They sent me a Linksys, er, Cisco router that looked just like any little blue 4 port router except that it also had a pair of phone jacks in the back of it. I connected it to another router I was using already, connected a plain old phone to it, and in a couple of minutes the phone had a dial tone. I made a few calls to people who are used to participating in my mad experiments. “You’re talking to me on a WHAT?” they would say. At first I said something like, “A voice over IP connection. Isn’t that cool?” Then I tired of that and just said, “Over the internet. I’m not using the phone company.” They said it sounded just like any other bothersome phone call, and I could hear just fine from my end, too. What a difference in quality in only four years! I’m surprised that no politician has yet taken credit for the visible improvements. Um, audible improvements.
People have come to expect the unexpected, and perhaps my friends have been conditioned to it more than most. Anyhow, I not only tried out Vonage, but then I transferred my phone number to them and cut the cable. Except it’s not the cable, it’s the phone line. This was not a decision that I took lightly. I love Ma Bell. I want them to put her back together again. I lived in Texas for 50 years, and the power goes out during big thunderstorms there. The phone almost never went out. It’s a family tradition to call the power company and tell them that the power is off because we heard the transformer blow right behind our house. This isn’t an article about my family’s power consumption, it’s about the reliability of the telephone system. Despite that experience, here I am, without a phone line connected to my house.
I reasoned that my cell phone works pretty good, if I keep it charged up. If I had a power outage and needed to call someone, I could try that. So I switched.
The phone carriers have been using digital networks for years. Remember the Sprint commercials with Candace Bergen where you could hear a pin drop over their spiffy cool new fiber optic network? What they were doing was taking sound, converting it to an electronic signal the way the Al Bell did it, but then converting the electrical signal into a digital signal and sending it through this cool fiber optic network in packets. Packetizing voice traffic turned out to be a good deal for phone companies – they didn’t have to connect a pair of copper wires from your phone to your mother’s, and leave it for the two of you to monopolize until your ear got numb and you made an excuse to get off the phone. Instead, they could put thousands of conversations together for the long haul and then split them apart at the other end. Long distance prices plummeted from a dollar to a dime by 1999, and are essentially gone now.
Many cell phones have free long distance. Qwest has offered a flat fee of $20 for unlimited long distance to residential users for some time. And now Vonage and other VOIP services are offering free long distance to the US and Canada and are even considering free LD to some European countries.
What a “Future Shock” that is! I’m old enough to remember when “don’t bother him, he’s on long distance” meant that somebody was spending a lot of money per minute on something that deserved their undivided attention. Try saying that now, and the Sharbrough Sisters will roll their eyes the way I taught them to and tell you to get a grip.
In 1998, the US Census Bureau made a commitment to VOIP technology. I’m sure it worked pretty badly for a while – they didn’t roll it out widely until 2003. The equipment that they use is made by Cisco. The router that Vonage sent to me is made by Cisco.
To use VOIP, you need broadband service (DSL or cable), which is not included. Vonage charges $15 a month for 500 minutes outbound and unlimited inbound. For $25, you can have unlimited calling either way. My Qwest bill for a single line and plain old service was usually $55, and often $60. With the annual savings, I could buy a big old Christmas present or, if I’m careful, buy a ticket for the Sharbrough Sisters to visit me. So let’s think … give the money to Qwest, or give it to Vonage, get the same service, and have the kids visit?
Did I say, “get the same service?” I shouldn’t have. Vonage has some cool email and web integration. For example, I get an email telling me that I have a voice mail at home. I can use a browser to view my phone traffic from anywhere – to see who called me and who I called. I can play my phone messages on my laptop. I didn’t get that from Qwest. It’s quite convenient, but I might be a special case. I don’t get many phone calls that aren’t from family or sales people, and neither group leaves many messages.
Vonage isn’t the only IP phone service I tested. Provo strung fiber optic cable all over town, and then hired HomeNet to provide cable tv, phone, and internet service over the network. These guys are kind of green – I got voice mail when I called customer service – but their offer is a big savings over buying the same services from separate vendors. I liked the quality of their VOIP offering just fine, but since it lacked the email and web integration of Vonage, and had the same $25 price, I took a pass.
If you don’t have broadband coming into the home, you might want to think about buying it. If you are using two phone lines – one for internet / fax, and one for voice, you’re paying an ISP and the phone company about the same amount of money that you’d pay for DSL and VOIP. Once you leave dialup, you never go back.
There are some down sides to VOIP. First of all, some services have problems with FAX, alarm systems, Tivo, and 911 calls (Vonage does not). If you have any of these things and rely on them, you’ll want to be sure that you get the same capabilities from VOIP or stick with status quo.
Also, since the call goes out like packets, the same as your email and web browsing, it’s got some security exposures. If you’re using the phone for something that you’re not saying in email and chat, you might suggest that your bookie, er, colleague, consider a VPN connection to encrypt your conversations.
Industry pundits estimate that VOIP numbers will grow from 16 million users spending $1 billion in 2004, to 197 million users spending $15 billion by 2008. They’re planning on a big bandwagon. Look, a big crowd can be wrong (remember “Give us Barabas!”), but they get the best customer service.
Whenever I buy something, I want it to be “perfect, free, now.” I don’t actually get it, but a person needs a goal.
In the 1980’s, genealogists used that expenzy pre-Murphy Brown long distance to talk to relatives and colleagues, and spent sparingly on copies, envelopes, and postage to send pictures, group sheets, and transcriptions to each other. It’s nice to get mail, but I don’t miss it.
Today, it’s possible to use the internet to stay in closer contact with more people for less money, and to exchange those documents instantly in an electronic form. That’s “better, cheaper, faster” and a step closer to the “perfect, free, now” world that I want to live in.