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Gambling - and losing - on VoIP over DSL
4 comments- TAGS:DSL, FiOS, gambling, VoIP
- IT TOPICS:Government & Regulation, Internet, Networking
It seems that I'm not the only one having problems with VoIP over DSL in this small corner of New Hampshire.
Things have gotten somewhat better as I continue to pilot a Computerworld corporate VoIP system, but there are still issues, especially around call quality. What's disturbing is that not only do I experience daily call quality issues on my end, but some calls that sound fine to me may suffer from noise or clipped speech due to lost packets on the other end. Unless I ask or the other person complains, I'm simply unaware that it's happening. That's annoying for the people I'm calling, especially during long interviews, but it was disastrous for a business down the street that relied on VoIP over DSL for voice-based transactions.
My suspicions that my call quality issues were in the last mile were heightened this week when I noticed that a fast food business nearby was dismantling a multi-lane drive through system. That system, which routed orders to a call center to speed up ordering, wasn't working out. The system used VoIP over DSL. The problem, said the store manager, was poor call quality that lead to inaccurate orders. Instead of speeding up the drive through operation, it was slowing it down.
Although Verizon does offer business pricing for DSL, there are no service level guarantees. Depending on how far you are from the DSLAM, uplink speeds can be a paltry 128Kbps - or less. The service level here allows up to 768Kbps uplink speeds. To be happy, this particular VoIP system consistently needed about 384Kbps of bandwidth. The store wasn't getting it.
Like other telecommunications companies that offer broadband, Verizon has little incentive to help with service level issues, nor does it make any guarantees. The Internet backbone itself has sufficient bandwidth to make the need for quality of service techniques that give priority to voice packets go away. The problem is getting there. Consistent service levels to the Internet backbone would only serve to commoditize Verizon's traditional lines of business, since VoIP over DSL bypasses its land line and T-1 leased line offerings. In this case, with DSL a failure, the store's only other option was to buy a T-1 for as much as ten times the cost of DSL. It decided to pass.
Verizon, which according to the Concord Monitor is under investigation in the State of New Hampshire for service quality issues, has apparently been slow not only in making DSL available, but to upgrade its infrastructure as DSL bandwidth demands in an area increase. I spoke with an IT executive from Westchester County, New York, yesterday who goes on frequent business trips. He relays this story:
When I had DSL, every once in a while I would return from a trip and the DSL would be down. I’d call Verizon and they’d say that the would look into that and in five minutes it was working again. One my buddies worked at Verizon and I told him about it. He said, "Sorry to tell you this but if we see inactivity for more than five days on the line we disconnect you because we can’t fit everyone onto the DSLAM (DSL Access Multiplexer)."
He has since moved to Verizon's high-speed FiOS service. The promised 5 Mbps uplink and 30Mbps downlink speeds, if consistent, would make the need for QoS for VoIP a nonissue. But you won't see that service in northern New England. Verizon is bailing out, selling its business to a tiny telecommunications company in North Carolina, along with $1 billion in debt and fuzzy promises that the new telco plans to extend the reach - if not the quality - of DSL services.
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