What’s SIP Doc?

I did a feature on SIP at Nojitter.com. This piece looks at how SIP is SLOWLY fulfilling its promise as the LCV (Lowest Common VoIP).

But a few more additional thoughts that didn’t fit in the article.

In “Will Amazon Inherit the World”, I wrote about how the Internet disruption is creating so many economic problems. SIP trunks are part of that disruption, they represent another physical item the Net is virtualizing. The list is becoming quite long – books, movies, music, money, pictures, software, mail…circuits. SIP trunks don’t require a carrier technician (or their truck) for installation. The PBX makers were quick to embrace it because it lowers their price by skipping additional hardware like analog and T1/PRI ports. Lower prices have an economic ripple effect manufacturing jobs, component manufacturing, suppliers, dealers, repair technicians, etc.

I am not suggesting this is bad, but its disruption and it is going to take some time to cure…. I am amazed at how little I spend for services I rely on – email, spam protection, virus protection, blog site, instant searching. I think about my life 10 years ago – A newspaper and a few magazine subscriptions, television with commercials, travel agents, the vast majority of my shopping at local retail…. No wonder unemployment is so high.

Another interesting aspect of SIP trunks is they flatten the world in a new confusing way. Similar to cell phones, a SIP trunk can be implemented virtually anywhere, even outside is official area code. This clouds the previously simple question: what is a local call? Cell phones solved the problem by eliminating the concept of a local call. Cleverly marketed as “free long distance” (sounds better than charging for local calls). Some SIP carriers use the cell model. But many end-users refuse to pay for local calls forcing some SIP carriers to protect the older model. In this case, local calling is an abstraction – that is actual service cost and end-user price are no longer related. There is a good chance the concepts of ‘local’ and ‘long distance’ will completely go away with SIP as it did with cellular.

These two concepts create the framework for a new trend; centralization. Organizations are using private IP networks to consolidate their trunking into fewer or even one location. The technology is available and daresay feasible to do this – it can even be done completely transparently. It gets a little tricky, but remote/branch offices completely set up with local numbers and outbound callerid – with all of their trunks actually terminating thousands of miles away. Centralized trunking is frequently being delivered with cost savings on both the carrier and equipment sides. SIP trunks are not necessarily required, but the overal solution tends to involve them along with MPLS intersite networking, VoIP systems, and VoIP gateways. Furthermore, the solution can be done without any loss in quality (possibly even improved with wideband voice).

A final thought to consider about SIP trunks and their impact is contribution to the decline of universal service. This is one of those complex political topics that has no clear solution, but the problem is real. The orignal Bell System created universal service and took it pretty seriously. The goal was everyone should have basic phone service and complex subsidies were created (from long distance, Government, and other sources) to develop a national copper network. As we switch to broadband services, we abandon the infrastructure. The national infrastructure of twisted copper pairs doesn’t have a strong future – but who will build its replacement? In Verizon’s High Fiber Diet, I observed Verizon is willing to rebuild the lucrative (populated) portions, but is rapidly selling off the rest.

Who or why anyone would buy a rural copper network is another question. (From David Isenberg’s blog):

Verizon’s case is even more peculiar since all of their customers subsidized FiOS, but only some will get it. Even worse, FiOS is (now) a video play, but there are plenty of early indicators that the cable model is next to be displaced by the Internet (Boxee, Netflix, iTunes, and Amazon video on demand services).

Forget tip and ring – broadband connectivity is rapidly becoming the new universal access mantra – sans the universal access part. Twenty percent of US households will have broadband by 2009 according to a Gartner report. But this based on demand, not supply. It isn’t at all clear how the nation will build a new broadband infrastructure – despite $4.7B in the bank. I switched to SIP at home. My monthly telecom charges average less than $10/mo. I don’t think much of that is going to our new national infrastructure (though arguably some of the $60/mo for Internet is).