Digiwebs New 4G Service

cgarvey

Try telling banks or IEDR that faxes are dying out. You wouldn't believe the fun I've had trying to get a fax down a Digiweb Metro line. When it works it works as good as any fax I've seen (albeit much slower), but it takes a lot of goes to get a page through.

Agreed on Fax over VoIP (or the kinda-telephone line Metro provides), but there are no decent email-to-fax gateways for those once a month faxes home users (and e-workers like me!) have to send.

Sponge Bob

there are decent email to fax gateways for one off or low volume outbound faxing.

thebman

I had never seen a fax machine until I started working where I am now. I get told the fax isn't working every other day now and it is working, they are just too stupid to use a fax.

Too stupid not to use a fax and use a better system too.

Its very annoying. Companies like using it for contracts.

bk

Sponge Bob wrote:

there are decent email to fax gateways for one off or low volume outbound faxing.

Links please?

All the services I've found in the past have monthly subscription fees, which is annoying for one off use.

Sponge Bob

I just sign up for a free trial here ( as required) and cancel within the month

Works fine

Blaster99

watty wrote:

3G/HSDPA 120ms to 350ms

Digiweb Flash-OFDM < 50ms maybe? I think you run out of sector capacity long before the latency is bad.

Jitter is a complex issue and affects fax on VOIP most of all. It depends on packet buffer size , dynamic vs static buffer and codec type as to if jitter is important for VOIP. Fax will only work on G.711 (T.38 is not really a codec, but a Tiff relay agent).

Have you read a book about VoIP recently or is Digiweb moving to a SIP-based telephony solution?

watty

Digiweb has been using Standards based SIP VOIP for some while and has their own PSTN Gateway(s) and SIP Server(s). I've played around with Asterisk & Trixbox (which Blueface use). I'm told that is not very scaleable so not used for Digiweb customers.

byte

bk wrote:

Links please?

All the services I've found in the past have monthly subscription fees, which is annoying for one off use.

eFax.com used to offer a free outgoing fax service (they put their logo on the outgoing fax page) but I see they no longer offer that anymore. Now, it's a free 30day trial...

cgarvey

Sponge Bob wrote:

I just sign up for a free trial here ( as required) and cancel within the month

Been there, but then they want €9/mo after that. To send a couple of faxes, that's nonsense (as are their outgoing rates on top of that as well).

The requirement is simple, a pay-per use (or a very cheap subscription fee suitable for very low volume) outbound fax service. Inbound is trickier (because of the cost of a permanent fax number), but I can live with that, or a shared number.. but anyway, I haven't found such a service.

cgarvey

watty wrote:

Digiweb has been using Standards based SIP VOIP for some while and has their own PSTN Gateway(s) and SIP Server(s). I've played around with Asterisk & Trixbox (which Blueface use). I'm told that is not very scaleable so not used for Digiweb customers.

Not very scalable compare to what? It's definitely scalable (and many huge sites using it). It mightn't be as economical to something else (which is why I'm asking).

All the SIP operators seem to be able to add standard features like voice-mail or call handling easily (and do), yet the less traditional telcos like NTL's offering, the FTH operators in the private estates, Digiweb Metro, Skype, proprietary IM networks all have issues of some sort with offering those standard features. Clearly, there are benefits to using SIP based IP telephony, and it compares well against, say, Metro from a consumer point of view anyway (long connect times, "funny" tones, no voicemail despite "in weeks" for years, basic stuff like that). The costs can't be that prohibitive if big outfits like Blueface can manage it (and manage it well by most accounts)?

.cg

Boston

watty wrote:

3G/HSDPA 120ms to 350ms

Digiweb Flash-OFDM < 50ms maybe? I think you run out of sector capacity long before the latency is bad.

Ok thats the post I was waiting for, I didn't realise flash-OFDM was considered 4g, what exactly is the criteria anyway.

watty

No-one has officially decided what 4G is. When we have the next generation of working mobile Wireless, ITU may or may not ratify it as 4G. There are 4 main systems, none of which match current ITU aspirations (for which there is not enough spectrum unless part of Analogue TV is used).

• Flash-OFDM
• LTE, the next major step of 3G/UTMS/HSDPA type systems
• Mobile Wimax
• Some sort of Urban mesh based on 802.11n WiFi

For LTE see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3GPP_Long_Term_Evolution

Only the Fixed version of WiMax is commercial.
Flash-OFDM is running in Slovakia, Ireland and Finland, also some German trials. It, like WiMax is not a development of 3G, but a new architecture, purely IP based.
LTE doesn't exist yet.
WiFi has proved so far very poor on delivery for mass delivery.

watty

cgarvey wrote:

Not very scalable compare to what? It's definitely scalable (and many huge sites using it). It mightn't be as economical to something else (which is why I'm asking).

All the SIP operators seem to be able to add standard features like voice-mail or call handling easily (and do), yet the less traditional telcos like NTL's offering, the FTH operators in the private estates, Digiweb Metro, Skype, proprietary IM networks all have issues of some sort with offering those standard features. Clearly, there are benefits to using SIP based IP telephony, and it compares well against, say, Metro from a consumer point of view anyway (long connect times, "funny" tones, no voicemail despite "in weeks" for years, basic stuff like that). The costs can't be that prohibitive if big outfits like Blueface can manage it (and manage it well by most accounts)?

.cg

SIP is perfectly scaleable. It's analogue ports on Asterisk that may not be. Skype is proprietary distributed system.
Metro and UPC cable (NTL/Chorus) both are standards based SIP VOIP with added QOS management. They run on secure private networks. I have no idea why voicemail, conferencing etc are not available yet. In theory there will be SMS on DECT handsets too. This however is separate from SIP and uses an SMS Service center and SMS gateway. Regulation of interconnect charges may be needed.

Blueface isn't that big, nor profitable last time I looked. Nor do they have a network. No network to pay for, or installs, only ATA supply (sometimes) and interconnect charges.

oscarBravo

watty wrote:

It's analogue ports on Asterisk that may not be [scalable].

What self-respecting SIP operator would use analogue ports, when a single interface card can provide 30 simultaneous ISDN channels?

watty

So how may Asterisk PCs with Primary ISDN how many cards for 100,000 calls simultaneously? Of course I meant PSTN, not Analogue. Not enough coffee.

Sponge Bob

oscarBravo wrote:

What self-respecting SIP operator would use analogue ports, when a single interface card can provide 30 simultaneous ISDN channels?

2 cards ( main + daughter) can provide at least 16 x 30 port Pri cards for an asterisk switch but it will cost ya

single pri cards such as a digium card and others are good value .

you can also encapulate an entire e1 within a symmetric ip stream using properietary boxes and break out to pri at the other end......such as in a hosting facility where e1s are very very very cheap .

the e1 or Pri 30 channel interface has not gone away you know

Sponge Bob

Watty is correct in saying that asterisk does not scale, ie asterisk would run a single pci card environment including codecs and ivr in about 500mhz of processor.

Therefore as the big computers nowadays are c.4 x 4ghz processors you get 32 pci card equivalent ( 32 x 500mhz) on one of these and as you often have a channel in and channel out you can handle 16x 30 calls ( not 32x calls) or 480 calls in setup or progress or teardown .

By using more expensive cards you offload the ivr and codec work from asterisk to these cards but the cards come with proprietary and complex apis to allow you to control the dsps and other card resources.

In this scenario 500mhz of processor could run 8 x pri cards ( or 2 x 4 port cards) which is 8 times denser than pushing all the processing onto the cpu.

Asterisk is reduced in this case to a decision making switch and is not the whole enchilada with ivr and codecs looking for cpu space .

100,000 simultaneous calls is nearly as much as eircom handles during offpeak hours

HTH someone, Digiweb maybe

Blaster99

Is this a scalability seminar for dummies I've walked into, or what's going on? It is perhaps not beyond possibility that one can have an Asterisk server farm to meet capacity requirements?

The whole 3rd party VoIP provider thing is a bit noddy but they provide an alternative and they're often very cheap.

watty

And to be really smart you put your PSTN interfaces in different towns / sites so when the JCB or whatever hits, you still have connectivity.

Well maybe someday eircom will not be the major provider. < 70% households have land line, > 110% of people have a mobile.

Liam Byrne

watty wrote:

< 70% households have land line, > 110% of people have a mobile.

How can you have "> 110% of people" ???

Boston

Liam Byrne wrote:

How can you have "> 110% of people" ???

Yes you can have 110% perentration. As in there is 1.1 mobiles for every man woman and child in the republic as I udnerstand it.

cgarvey

watty wrote:

SIP is perfectly scaleable. It's analogue ports on Asterisk that may not be.

Ah, OK! Although I can't imagine any telco/ISP would use analogue/PSTN ports on Asterisk, would they?

ISPs do have control (QoS) of their own network so Blueface are at a disadvantage unless they're nearby your ISP. Skype is a different kettle of fish, agreed. However having used all 3, I still find the QoS network (Metro) fairs the worst (in call quality, ignoring the long connects & lack of voicemail, etc.). That's probably more to do with bigger issues with Metro voice, rather than any network topology / implementation, but you'd imagine it'd have been sorted by now. I have, of course, experienced bad calls with both Skype and Blueface, but it still is interesting that (IMO) what *should* be the best service, is actually the worst.

cgarvey

Liam Byrne wrote:

How can you have "> 110% of people" ???

Those 110% figures, in fairness, do include pre-paid mobiles, and some fancy reporting of figures. Do you count a person who's gone from pre-paid to post-paid (but still has a quid of credit on the pre-paid, that doesn't expire for months, or "ever" apparently)? I'm sure the phone companies do. Also, a lot of people have 1 mobile for work and 1 for personal use.

Sponge Bob

Mobiles are not 'active'and counted unless used or topped up ( or both) in the past 6 months as I understand it.

Lots of tourists get a sim while here and pop it in their phones .

watty

So is it only Irish Operators that lock the phones? "3" has some €500 approx phones at €29. So I can understand the locking, then again that's on a 12 month min contract at €480 minimum.

PixelTrawler

Any feedback on the current trial in Finglas, and any news regarding further (non dublin) rollouts.