>From today's meeting, taking to list. Remote participation for users connecting via the PSTN though gateways into a VoIP conference platform raises some issues.
One of these is "registration" . There are hacks like PINs that can be made to work. But to me, the biggest problem is that it is just really hard to make it work, especially for participants on the fringe of the PSTN. Echo cancellation may be impossible to provide without exceeding the 150ms latency interaction/interrupt threshold determined in Brian Rosen's research. One doesn't necessarily need "broadband" to use IP. I've talked quite successfully between participants with EDGE mobile connections. But going over a long path of telephone network to a PSTN gateway, thence over IP to a conference platform is a recipe for disaster. I therefore propose that our remote participation system neither require nor support dial-in telephone numbers. This assumption can greatly simplify the system, reduce operating expense, and reduce the probability of systemic marginal failure where the system "works" but not well enough to actually use. Some argue that this would unfairly exclude people who can't get Internet connections, but I counter that it's certainly less of an exclusion than requiring them to physically attend the meeting, and it's far more unfair to make an IETF meeting fail for these who are actually using the Internet to participate in it. -- dean _______________________________________________ NOTE WELL: This list operates according to http://mipassoc.org/dkim/ietf-list-rules.html. https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/vmeet
