> My personal experience with "the slumlords of telecommunciations"
> (Time-Warner in New York and Brighthouse Communications in Florida) is
> that their VOIP service provides highly reliable and near perfect voice
> quality... as good as anything I ever had from a Verizon land line...
Ah, but there is a reason why you have experience decent voice
quality. The cable companies have a specific jack on their NID
(network interface device) for the telephone to plug into. This port
is tied to a VLAN which is pulled off at their nearest router and
directed to the VoIP switch/gateway. Your telephone call never
actually touches the Internet, other in the local access loop.
MagicJack uses the Internet to connect to some voice switch/gateway in
some far off location. Las Vegas, being a popular location. Think
about it this way, your call has to traverse the wild-wild-west from
the Carolinas to at least one NAP, over to another NAP and eventually
to Las Vegas where it terminates to a VoIP switch. That VoIP switch is
then connected to the public telephone network where it is on a proper
voice-switched network or maybe goes back over the public Internet
again to get to some other provider who is gaming the system. The fact
that it works at all is a miracle.
In comparison, your VoIP switch/gateway from the "slumlords" is kept
isolated from the public Internet and they own their own switch and
it's pretty local. Chances are, you are within 100 miles of the
switch, which is strategically located near where all the other
telephone companies are located. (It's a star over star system). You
absolutely cannot assume that MagicJack and TW are equivalent.
Actually, I'm going to give TW (TWT/TWC) a pass on this one because
they are a mixture of cable tv and telephone heritage and have a large
long-haul fiber network. They actually know what they are doing.
> I only use my cell phone when I'm on the road and have no other choice.
To each his/her own. But unlimited nationwide calling can be a
benefit. This last month, I did over 60 hours of talk time on my
phone.
> I understand that the Internet was not designed for real time
> communications but I think I'll buy a Magic Jack and make my own
> determination of quality. My experiences seem to not match with yours.
That's OK. I understand our experiences are different. This is a lot
like a bunch of other things in life. Just because something works,
doesn't mean it's the right solution. Moose can testify to that with
my choice in cameras. :) My problem is that I know what that
nationwide network kinda looks like and the battles we have in keeping
it from floating toes up.
Another thing to consider, before relegating yourself to third-world
telephone service, is to take the amount you would spend on MagicJack
and upgrade your landline service to unlimited long-distance or
reduced rate. You'll be able to hear better, less latency and dropped
calls, words, etc., and it will be about a financial match. Me thinks
you are venturing into the fool's errand of stepping over dollar bills
to pick up pennies.
--
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
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