PSTN just as capable as VoIP???
Aswath’s post questioning the general ill-repute POTS has gotten these past few years is generally wrong headed technically, but does illustrate a market problem. Aswath maintains that POTS could handle anything that VoIP does, it just isn’t configured to do so. That definitely is true to a point–after all, AT&T could email voice mails or we could have Follow-Me style calling. Still, it heads down the wrong direction, technically. VoIP and IP, after all, lends itself to peer to peer infrastructure that can more or less operate without core switches, whereas POTS revolves around a centralized infrastructure (it is not called a central office for nothing). Things like instant number portability, regardless of geographic location, for example, are simple concepts on voip and almost impossible on POTS. Or, perhaps to say it a little better (although drawing on a more complex technical example), it is the difference between ATM and IP. Regardless of what you program POTS to do, you have all the limitations of an architecture that is fundamentally “circuit” oriented, where as IP (and voice over IP) is end-point oriented
Nevertheless, it is an interesting observation even it is fundamentally wrong on some levels. After all, for all the potential applications of voice over IP, we see a crowded market of companies who try to offer a cheaper versions of POTS. This is especially surprising to me–I bill out for too much an hour to even bother setting up an ATA to cut my phone bill in half, and I’d imagine that most of the voip lovers out there blogging about skype are in the same boat, financially. It’s the promise of voip that makes it interesting–application integration, presence-awareness, geographical freedom, and complex voice applications. This is (obviously) where the potential lies; we still see way to much of the me-too glorified POTS replacement that simply offer a few dollars a month in savings. A challenge to VoIP companies out there–if your product could be (reasonably) delivered over POTS, then you need to rethink your offering.