VoIP. Is Phone by Wire Nearly Dead?

I do not remember the exact quote and I think it was Prof. Negroponte of Media Lab something to the effect in early '80s: "What is coming through air (TV) will come through wire (IPTV) and what is coming through wire (telephone service) will come through air (mobile telephones)"!

As I mentioned before, to allow competition, there were "unbundling" laws - much like for electricity and/or railways hence BT was split into two parts to allow competitors to "rent" and use "last mile" to ensure that their backbone does not subsidise the last mile and that this should cost the same to rent BT or to any other provider.

If you need speed, multiple connections and reliability (business or environment), then you need "wire" and fibre- optics will be the future.

I noticed someone lamenting that old telephone exchanges (circuit switch) have been replaced and so one needs one nuke to take out whole network - this is wrong!

It was precisely the above that led to "internet" which is self-healing and finds different routes. You VoIP call to your neighbour might have travelled to US or Germany and back on per second or less basis - packets do not follow the same path! If you want that they follow the same path, then you have to pay extra (!) to have "virtual circuit switch connection" (what used to happen in good old days)

Best wishes,

I do not remember the exact quote and I think it was Prof. Negroponte of Media Lab something to the effect in early '80s: "What is coming through air (TV) will come through wire (IPTV) and what is coming through wire (telephone service) will come through air (mobile telephones)"!

As I mentioned before, to allow competition, there were "unbundling" laws - much like for electricity and/or railways hence BT was split into two parts to allow competitors to "rent" and use "last mile" to ensure that their backbone does not subsidise the last mile and that this should cost the same to rent BT or to any other provider.

If you need speed, multiple connections and reliability (business or environment), then you need "wire" and fibre- optics will be the future.

I noticed someone lamenting that old telephone exchanges (circuit switch) have been replaced and so one needs one nuke to take out whole network - this is wrong!

It was precisely the above that led to "internet" which is self-healing and finds different routes. You VoIP call to your neighbour might have travelled to US or Germany and back on per second or less basis - packets do not follow the same path! If you want that they follow the same path, then you have to pay extra (!) to have "virtual circuit switch connection" (what used to happen in good old days)

Best wishes,