Om Malik’s recent post got me a little heated. While I support voice-over-IP (VoIP) efforts, I worry at times that we as consumers will unknowingly contribute to a tragedy of the commons. The "commons" that we risk of losing is that of the reliability and security of a public utility. Below I’ve reproduced (and cleaned up formatting for) some comments I made in Om’s post as to why VoIP is not the same as the public switched telephone service (PSTN).
Everyone gives a lot of heat to the incumbent PSTN providers, and there’s good reason for that because people are looking at Skype, pre-paid international calling cards, and the like and coming to their own conclusions that the PSTN is not a good deal. Heck, I’m a user and have switched over in some cases based on cost.
What people fail to understand is the PSTN was designed to handle a lot of things we take for granted:
- 911 calls being nailed up to the operator position so you can’t hang up. Can all VoIP providers do that? (I don’t know)
- What about cases of power outages? The PSTN was designed to keep your phone powered during outages.
- What about cases of major disasters, e.g., bombs blowing up key parts of the national infrastructure? The PSTN was designed to handle these requirements …
- What about traffic congestion and call gapping?
- What about FBI or authorities being able to wiretap under authorized situations, etc.?
The list goes on and on, but all people care about is price until things go badly …
Now regardless of whether Vonage has made, will make, needs to make, etc. any information regarding differing QoS, a lot of this will likely go over a typical person’s head in the early rounds and years to come. Telecom technology is pretty complex. I hope someone is keeping their eye on the ball so that we don’t unknowingly wipe out a valued, public commons without a proper alternative. I am all for Vonage, and may the best service win so to speak, but the PSTN gets too much of a bad rap at times. As consumers, we (via our unsatiated appetite for VoIP) and companies like WorldCom have created a ton of pressure on the incumbent carriers that we sometimes forget.
Steve Shu
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