Replacing PBXes with Open Source

[Kenneth E. Lussier]

On Wed, 2004-08-25 at 20:08, Michael ODonnell wrote:
> If I were one of the entrenched players in the telecoms
> space, or if I were a big-brother type, I think I'd be
> angry about VoIP.  From a business angle, I'd see stuff
> like VoIP as a threat to my legislated monopoly. 

Well, there are two sides to this.. The big telcos see it as a threat
and want to stap out new competition like Vonage while at the same time
using the same technologies. The big telcos have to build the new
infrastructure, build the bridge to move people over, and maintain the
old infrastructure at the same time. The new companies only need to roll
out the new infrastructure. 

>  From a
> big brother perspective I'd be unhappy about the enhanced
> privacy as well as the potential for abuse (like CNI
> spoofing) that were previously not so easily available.

Well, there are government regulations that basically prevent privacy.
It doesn't matter if a phone line is VoIP or analog, the feds still have
to be able to tap it. That is one of the reasons that larger companies
have been slow to adopt it. They can't figure out how to make it 1)
secure so that people will use it and 2) insecure so the feds can tap
it. 
 
> In either case, I'd do my level best to prevent or at
> least cripple the widespread availability of PBX- and
> VoIP-enabled gear to the Great Unwashed...

The current strategy seems to be to roll it out before it's ready so
that people will stick with the larger companies. For example, AT&T has
a VoIP offering called CallVantage that is a partial IP solution but
with zero security, and a lot of bugs. But, if they get the early
adopters, then the customer base will follow. It's the old DEC mentality
of "Everyone will just always buy DEC". They seem to forget that in the
end, someone eventually *DID* buy DEC :-)

C-Ya,
Kenny