[asterisk-users] Teliax Quality of Service

[Stephen Bosch]

Brian Capouch wrote:
> Stephen Bosch wrote:
> 
>> PSTN service still sets the standard.
>>
> 
> With infrastructure paid for under a gracious guaranteed-profit monopoly 
> by ratepayers,

In a regulated marketplace with legislated minimum service levels.

In Canada, most of the phone systems were government-owned. It was a
good system, at least from the point of view of reliability. I don't
miss the surly (and often slow) service, but it's arguable whether
today's service -- in which everyone smiles nice and *pretends* to serve
you while ignoring you completely -- is any better. At least the bloody
stuff worked.

Communications infrastructure is a strategic, national asset, and only
really useful if it goes everywhere, even to the unprofitable pockets
like Podunk Corners, North Dakota. People forget this. In a totally free
marketplace, Podunk Corners waits years for service and gets tin cans
and string when it finally arrives.

> now being used as a weapon to stifle competition from 
> VoIP, cable, and other emerging technologies.

Is it? Maybe -- in some circumstances. The history of this makes for
some pretty distorted economics, if you ask me.

If you want an example of what happens when you don't have regulation to
build infrastructure, look at Africa. All wireless, all horribly
oversubscribed, and correspondingly unreliable. That's how you pay for
expensive equipment in a "free market".

-Stephen-