VoIP As a Solution To Rural Broadband

boyko.at.netqos recommends his article up at Network Performance Daily, which notes the recent reports that up to 30% of households do not have a landline telephone, preferring a VoIP or cell-phone based solution. What to do with the miles of last-mile phone line infrastructure already in place in almost all the homes across the country? Maybe there's a solution to rural broadband by using the high-reliability frequencies reserved for voice purely for data — and using VoIP to make phone calls. From the article: "Repurposing the broadband of 0-25kHz would result in... speeds of around 14.4 kBytes/s (or 115.9 kbits/s) upload and 28.8 kBytes/s (231.3 kbits/s) download. That's not much of a speed boost. Still, if you've been plodding along on a '56.6k' modem, at speeds of 7.2kBytes/s, this would be like an oasis in the desert. And what about those phone calls? Well, if you make the same phone calls with VoIP that you were with the standard 0-4kHz landline, it would only take about 20.8kbits/s using the G.723.1 codec — that still leaves you with 80% of your broadband capacity when on the phone — and 100% of your broadband when you're off it." Only the US FCC calls 231K "broadband," but as noted it does beat dialup.

FCC definition of broadband

Not to be pedantic (and I understand the general drift of the article), but from wikipedia: "... the US FCC used 200 kbit/s in their definition until march 19th 2008 after which it was scaled up to require a minimum of 768 kbit/s to be defined as broadband and at that time the FCC introduced new tiers in their definition as follows: 1) 200kbit/s to 768kbit/s ("first generation data"); 2) 768kbit/s to 1.5Mbit/s ("basic broadband"); 3) 1.5Mbit/s to 3 Mbit/s; 4) 3Mbit/s to 6 Mbit/s; and 5) 6Mbit/s and above." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadband_Internet_access [wikipedia.org]

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yes, yes. shallow and pedantic.

Re:FCC definition of broadband

"Broadband" isn't a data transmission speed, not anymore than "cable", "modem" or "DSL" are transmission speeds.

Here's a real definition of broadband:

broadÂband adjective

1. of, pertaining to, or responsive to a continuous, wide range of frequencies.

2. pertaining to or denoting a type of high-speed data transmission in which the bandwidth is shared by more than one simultaneous signal.

[definition] [reference.com]

Hence: "the broadband of 0-25kHz" mentioned in the article.

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"Broadband" isn't a data transmission speed, not anymore than "cable", "modem" or "DSL" are transmission speeds.

You're right; it isn't a speed, it's a bandwidth (a broad bandwidth).

1. of, pertaining to, or responsive to a continuous, wide range of freque

Re:FCC definition of broadband

Why were they allowed take a well-defined technical term and re-purpose it as meaningless marketing drivel?

The main reason is called the First Amendment. ;-) It permits anyone to misuse any term they like for any reason.

In this case, they're just Doing What Marketing Does. They use whatever words are effective in selling what they're selling. They figured out that to the public that has no clue about such technical terms, "broadband" just means "faster". So they adopted it as a marketing term.

It's nothing at all unique to Internet marketing. The same approach is used everywhere that it works. People have been complaining about marketers' misuse of words since marketing came into existence back in prehistory. There's no way we're going to change this, short of educating the public about the actual definition of the terms. And considering the general public contempt for geeky stuff that requires education, that's not going to happen any time soon.

(This misuse isn't nearly as agregious as the use of "quantum" to mean "large", when the technical definition is more like "the smallest difference possible". I'm sure others here have their favorite misuses of technical terms. ;-)

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For the purposes of this post bandwidth is defined in the traditional sense of the range of frequencies availible for your transmission.

ALL real world mediums are analog. Signals reflect off discontinuities. Noise gets added and higher frequencies get atte

Sounds cheaper

And better than satellite since it shouldn't degrade when the weather isn't perfect. That was the main complaint of people I know who live in the boonies and have to go with satellite (note that those people don't require low latency).

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Not only that, but my brother is a dial-up user and while he does comment on my connection being faster than his when he's over, the most common "OMG teh coolness!" thing he likes about my connection: it doesn't tie up the phone line.

Seriously, most rural

Re:Sounds cheaper

i don't think "YouTube is still a painful experience" is due in any respect to your connection speed - it has alot more to do with the content and people who comment there.

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Then your definition of "rural" is a bit looser than mine. When I spoke about my broker earlier: his closest neighbor is 6 miles away ;). There is no "town" to speak of.

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Actually, the ground expanding and contracting, the copper or aluminum conductors getting wet, cards hitting poles in bad conditions, and winds blowing down lines off of above-ground poles (or the poles falling over, trees breaking in the wind or under the

Much like ISDN...

That was much like the overall premise and promise of ISDN BRI - "high speed" digital access over voice grade plant, which failed miserably due to a number of technical, political, and corporate reasons.

Granted, the OP's proposal is somewhat different, as

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There is a missing item to consider. Much of the infrastructure that exists, even in rural USA is that there are more than one pair of copper to most homes. Ma Bell wanted to see you two phone lines at one time, so the possibility of DSL grade equipment th

Re:Much like ISDN...

isdn BRI didn't fail do to technical or political reasons..

it failed to become main stream because durring the time frame where it would have been the first broadband that could be delivered anywhere - the phone company priced it out of existance for nearly any home user.

yes the first gen did have anissue of requiring f1 pairs.. (2 at that).. but they later changed it so it could use a single pair and also be routed accross fiber nodes..

pricing is what killed it (well more of a still birth).. but functionaly it was great (i used one for many years)

IDSL uses ISDN modulation without switching

IDSL is an ISDN-flavored DSL version. It uses the ISDN modulation to send bits over the wire, but with a full-time DSLAM connection as opposed to ISDN switched calling.
It gets 144kbps - ISDN has two 64kbps B channels and a 16kbps D channel, and is typical

Waste of time

Seems silly to spend all that time and money trying to get the FCC to change its regulations when this situation seems tailor made for a good RFC 1149 [ietf.org] implementation. Latency is still an issue with such a setup, but bandwidth can be virtually unlimited if you have the resources.

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Unfortunately, in rural areas, RFC 1149 datagram carriers may be actively destroyed for human sustenance. This would further increase latency, and could pose a significant security hole. In such network regions, packet sniffers tend to be numerous and ve

Dream on...

Sounds nice but,try to get the telco's to implement it in areas that they deem unprofitable without an act of congress. The best solution for broadband in the boonies as I see it would be broadband over powerlines.

Not broadband, but...

It actually sounds like a good idea. Sure, it's not as fast as broadband, but it's still a good five times faster than dialup. And ten times faster than a lot of people get in those rural areas where no wired broadband is available.

Just use ISDN

This is what ISDN is good for. It's not very demanding of loop quality, and you get uncompressed digital voice, plus modest data capability.

ISDN voice handsets are common in Europe. The Swiss PTT likes them. European practice is to power them from the central office, so you don't need power at the subscriber end. US practice is to power ISDN gear from the subscriber end, which makes them unreliable as a primary phone connection. There's no fundamental reason, though, why central office power for ISDN can't be used in the US. The gear is available.

The problem is that many rural lines have analog repeaters out on poles somewhere, and those are't compatible with DSL, ISDN, or much of anything else. See Rural Telephony Workshop Report. [rural.org].

Sounds like IDSL

This sounds pretty much like IDSL. The problem has never been technological - the problem is getting your telephone company to implement it at a price that's reasonable. Instead of breaking up the low frequencies into two 64 Kbit/sec ISDN BRI channels and one 16 Kbits/sec D channel for signaling, IDSL just uses all 144 Kbits/sec (symmetric) for data. The suggestion is asymmetric ISDN based broadband, but that's a minor difference. ISDN goes much longer distances than ADSL or SDSL due to the lower frequencies. In the early 1990s I had ISDN and it worked fine, except the phone company charged $ 250 a month for unlimited 128 Kbits/sec. Great technology (at the time), but insane pricing.

so ...

It's going to be Voice over IP over Voice? VoIPoV?

Hit and miss politics

There isn't too much information in the article, particularly what problems may be encountered. The amount of data that can be delivered will vary greatly due to certain technical considerations. Politically, giving everyone in rural areas the 'same lousy service' is a minefield.

The outside cable plant and distance to the central office is everything:

* "Wires on poles" can degrade bandwidth 10x or more, particularly if there is industrial or broadcast interference. Modern underground cable plant can provide several Mbit/s up to 30km or so.

* Loading coils, commonly used in the past to maintain 600 or 900 ohm line impedance, limit the bandwidth of the lines to not mush more than 4kHz. They must be removed which is allot of tedious labour. Once removed, POTS may not work properly. Since some lines will need them and others definitely not, this gives a great excuse to 'take forever' to install the service.

* COTS DSL-modem/routers, common in many areas, may not work on large runs. Slightly modified units can put out greater signal and have better echo cancellation. This looks like a lock-in and higher prices. Higher transmission levels, lower received levels and longer runs invite crosstalk in a big way. It may be that many systems start out really good, but quickly degrade as more subscribers are added.

* Some rural cable-plant is "hollow-sounding" with voice and will simply not work with DSL. I'm no expert on US rural phone systems, but its fair to say most will get the pitiful 256kbit/s rate. This is what can be achieved with above-ground cable-plant at 30km in a city environment. The actual case I use example is Buenos Aries.

Any cable-plant that doesn't support 25kHz should be recycled! Otherwise, most will probably do much better, so limiting service to below 256kbit/s is deceptive. All told, there are a number of technical hurdles, which can be overcome, but the politics will go on forever.

This isn't a nice comparison to make, but in England there is more 'broadband' (there is a somewhat higher standard to the definition there) in the country than the city. Of course, like most of Europe, all wires are underground.

                 

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911 works on VOIP -they call it e911. It works as long as your provider has your address. Many providers have it, including Acanac ( http://www.acanac.com/Phones.htm [acanac.com] )

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100% of the 911 scare was generated by the incumbent phone carriers. They have fought tooth and nail for the privilege of making 911 fail on VOIP phones. In some places they have won, and have been allowed to cripple 911. In other places they have lost,