[clug] Residential VOIP discussion, was Skype on Ubuntu

Ben Schreiner shadroth at gmail.com
Thu Oct 6 02:13:51 GMT 2005


>Apparently the Telecommunications Act requires access to "digital data
>services" for everyone, whereever they may choose to live.  It's
>amazing that I could choose to live as a hermit in the wilderness and
>(it would seem) have the cost of a satellite internet link subsidised
>by ADSL users in the suburbs.  Mm, pork.

I think this is what HiBis is meant to solve, so I guess everyone, not
just ADSL users make up the shortfall.

>I've had my Transact phone keep working when the power was out, but
>also had Transact off the air for a few hours because power was
>interrupted at their node, which according to the callcenter guy does
>not have backup power.  I suppose the node is not necessarily on the
>same power supply as the residences.  At any rate the net result is
>probably less reliable than POTS.

You'd think they could whack in a UPS, and rush out a tech with a
generator if the node went down.

>My feeling is that if people have the choice to have no phone at all,
>then they should have the choice to buy a bad or unreliable phone.

The TransACT service is promoted as being a full phone service:
"Complete local and long distance phone service, available in most
areas of the ACT and Queanbeyan."
http://www.transact.com.au/phone/default.aspx

Proper VoIP providers always say, very clearly, that their service is
not a replacement for a standard phone service. TransACT should have
their network on par with (or better than) Telstra for reliability
since it's max 5 years old, not max 30-50 years old.

As it stands they won't connect my house (or any other new connection
in my suburb) despite running cables through all our back yards, so
there's not much hope for them at this stage.


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