Chris Bagnall wrote: >> However, my experience hasn't been that VoiP is as reliable as >> copper lines and so unless you can tolerate the odd outage once per >> month or two then you might want to stick to copper for the main >> carrier? Does this match with the experience from others? > > Until recently, I'd have agreed entirely with this statement. > However, recently one of our clients (in a shopping centre) > encountered a scenario where a contractor had chopped through a load > of PSTN lines whilst enlarging the car park. Their calls were routed > via an ADSL connection which came in on an alternate location. For > the better part of a week, they were the only shop in the building > able to make & receive calls.
I'd say it's only a miracle that the ADSL connection wasn't entering through the same cable bundle. VoIP connections are no less vulnerable to contractor mistakes -- what you describe is really a matter of redundancy; while it may be hard to get redundant PSTN connections through different physical feeds, it's not impossible, and the advantages you describe are not inherent to VoIP -- they're inherent to redundant transports :) > By having two independent net connections plus a "true" PSTN backup > you've got 3 levels of redundancy. Short of spending a fortune on > "guaranteed fix times" from the telco ...which are the stuff of myth, anyway. If the service goes down it goes down -- and all the SLA in the world won't protect you. You can pound your fist on the table and turn blue if you want -- the best you'll do is get your money refunded. You are better off investing your money in as much vendor-separate redundancy as you can afford. Then, when the bulldozer goes through the underground cable, cross your fingers. I still wouldn't go without PSTN. -Stephen- _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
