We all know that without decent internet connectivity that VoIP and all that comes with it won't be adopted. When I travel and have great bandwidth, with low latency, no packet loss and an absence of jitter, it's like the other party is in the same room.
On the other hand, unless you stand over the techs in the USA from the phone company or cable MSOs, often times you have to settle for something that is just good. Not great.
It seems over in the UK the results of some surveys and some testing proves out that one of the biggest hinderances to VoIP deployment has been shoddy line quality.
Bandwidth is definitely a issue, especially when using VOIP outside the US and Europe (Thought even that can be bad at times).
I've found that Skype while great when you have decent bandwith, is next to useless on poorer, lower speed connections.
I've actually found that vonage is better over those slower lines (128 K Down / 16 k up Microwave connection) were it is actually reasonably usable as opposed to Skype, Google Talk, etc which more more or less refuse to work.
Perhaps you could look at and suggest VOIP providers which are more efficient in their bandwidth usage, or at least offer the user some control over those setting.
Something like that would be really useful, especially for people outside the US, or those who travel to places with poorer connections regularly.
Posted by: BBusyB | December 24, 2008 at 05:58 AM
That is why we have a fractional T1 at our office and our remote workers usually have cable companies as their providers.
http://www.laphoneinstall.com
Posted by: mark | December 19, 2008 at 12:39 PM