| This story is one of those too-good-to-be-true tales | | | | power that your cable system needs, or the loss of |
| that actually might be real. The acronym VoIP stands | | | | cable service itself. If the packet switching gear isn't |
| for Voice Over Internet Protocol; that's the | | | | functioning properly, phone calls have dropped |
| technology for making telephone calls over the web. | | | | segments in them like cell phone signals cutting in and |
| Several companies have introduced services that | | | | out. |
| utilize this technological capacity and they are making | | | | Still, harnessing the Internet to challenge Ma Bell is an |
| a commercial success of it. That's why major cable | | | | audacious and impressive endeavor - and it's working. |
| operators are now "bundling" cable service, high | | | | Right now, the companies offering the service allow |
| speed Internet access and telephone service in a | | | | you to plug your phone into your computer and |
| package. They can provide all three products over | | | | make your calls at a vastly reduced rate than you'll |
| the single coaxial cable wire that comes through your | | | | see from your local phone provider. They aren't |
| wall at home. | | | | stopping there either. One of them already has a |
| Telephone service over cable blows right past the | | | | Wi-Fi phone out that will allow you to drop into a |
| "level playing field" that antitrust decisions have | | | | wired internet café and call anywhere in the |
| sought to achieve in order to provide competition for | | | | world. |
| phone service on a local level. The telephone | | | | So the question becomes, "Can a $4.95 per month |
| companies' switching systems and all those copper | | | | worldwide phone service survive?" The simple |
| cables on all those poles have been totally subverted | | | | answer would be "How could it fail?" The true issue |
| by another Internet service. In the words of Peter | | | | here is how the phone companies respond. They are |
| Sisson, a former Bell Labs researcher, "Telephone | | | | a powerful political and economic force. If they can |
| service used to be based on a huge infrastructure of | | | | saddle the cable operators offering VoIP with |
| high-priced equipment...and now it's just software." | | | | common carrier status, that would bring them into |
| VoIP is technology that accesses underutilized | | | | the regulatory realm. |
| bandwidth to move voice communications over cable | | | | VoIP services could become enormously popular, and |
| systems. "Packet Switching" technology moves audio | | | | that will inevitably drive prices up. Just as with the |
| signals along the same coaxial and fiber cables that | | | | video portion of cable, once we had to have it the |
| carry Internet traffic and cable TV programming. The | | | | rates went on a steady climb that continues year |
| technology has been developed to compress video | | | | after year. But the beauty of the Internet is that |
| signals and to more efficiently move data bits for | | | | you can switch to another VoIP provider with a half |
| email, web browsing and audio conversations along | | | | hour's worth of clicks and one cancellation call to the |
| shared bandwidths by isolating the information into | | | | cable company. With no infrastructure required other |
| "packets" and sending them downstream like boxes | | | | than the usual bevy of servers, there are going to |
| on a conveyor belt. | | | | be a lot of aggressive new firms that try to make |
| The down sides for this product concept include the | | | | themselves into the phone companies of the new |
| loss of phone service concurrent with the loss of | | | | millennium. |