We were up at Comms Vision in November. Great venue, great event and well organised. Nigel suggested Griffin sponsor the after-dinner bar and I thought; "Sure, why not? How much could these guys possibly drink after a huge dinner and unlimited table wine?" At 3 am and as Ty Gardner toasted Griffin's generosity for what seemed like the 10th time I remember smiling weakly and thinking; "Have I learned nothing from my 23 years in the voice business?"
Of course the 'C' word was in liberal use throughout the event and most of the speakers managed to get convergence into their presentations somehow. If there was one thing missing for me it was probably a good debate on the prospects for the last mile and the impact that innovations in the local loop might have on the pace of convergence. In our various 121 meetings it became clear that very few people appreciate the nuances of IPstream vs. Datastream vs. LLU vs. WBC and understandably just think of it as 'broadband'. "Does voice really work over broadband?" was the favourite question and you could see they were all dreading an answer that starts with “well that depends…” followed by a load of partisan technical gibberish.
So let me try and give you an objective, layman’s view of your alternatives.
Upstream is in almost every exchange and although BTW publish ‘throughput guarantees’ they come with no real SLA. Our experience is that BT’s network is over-engineered and uncongested and the quality of voice calls depends on how your ISP manages their own network, their ability to prioritise voice packets and their interconnects with BT. Many of our white label partners use it for voice if they need 2-3 simultaneous calls and where they have properly set the expectation of their customer.
Datastream networks usually cover around 2000 exchanges (80% business population). With Datastream you can reserve bandwidth and better guarantee the quality of calls. The downside is that the broadband is more expensive and may not always cost in against an ISDN equivalent.
LLU providers generally cover up to half of the business population and because they use their own backhaul they don’t have to buy central pipes from BT and the bandwidth is generally cheaper. LLU has all the benefits of Datastream in that most will offer ‘voice-ready’ guaranteed bandwidth.
Partner with an ISP that has a policy of business broadband aggregation and you will be able to select the product that best meets the needs of your customers.
Remember with all of these alternatives the best level of care is a 20 clock-hour fault clearance (not fixed) and when they miss this, the compensation offered by BT is pitiful.
Next year BT will start to replace IPstream with 21CN broadband. Ethernet interconnects, guaranteed bandwidth in every exchange, one day provides, five-hour fixes and a proper SLA. This will be the catalyst for hosted voice and ISDN replacement products to really get some traction and I am sure will be a headline topic at next year’s CVC.
Happy Christmas, happy selling and see you in the New Year.
Source: Comms Dealer December.
Andrew Dickinson
