TNZ and VoIP

[Gordon J Milne]

This was at the tail-end of a Robert Cringely article this week:

/And there are other dirty tricks available to broadband ISPs. Telecom
New Zealand, for example, is reportedly planning to alter TCP packet
interleaving to discourage VoIP. By bunching all voice packets in the
first half of each second, half a second of dead air would be added to
every conversation, changing latency in a way that would drive
grandmothers everywhere back to their old phone companies. This is
because phone conversations happen effectively in real time and so are
very sensitive to problems of latency. Where one-way video and audio can
use buffering to overcome almost any interleaving issue, it is a
deal-breaker for voice.
/
First, where does he get this information? Secondly, do TNZ really think
they can get away with this one? Thirdly, would the regulator even
understand the paragraph above?

[Steve Phillips]

Would people on this list like some tinfoil hats as well ?

This has been discussed at length on NZNOG as well and the conclusion is
that the author of the article has no idea what he's talking about.

There is no point in even starting a rant on this list on this subject.
Anyone interested can goto the nznog archives at http://list.waikato.ac.nz
and read the posts for themselves.
--
Steve.

/And there are other dirty tricks available to broadband ISPs. Telecom New
Zealand, for example, is reportedly planning to alter TCP packet interleaving
to discourage VoIP. By bunching all voice packets in the first half of each
second, half a second of dead air would be added to every conversation,
changing latency in a way that would drive grandmothers everywhere back to
their old phone companies. This is because phone conversations happen
effectively in real time and so are very sensitive to problems of latency.
Where one-way video and audio can use buffering to overcome almost any
interleaving issue, it is a deal-breaker for voice.
/
First, where does he get this information? Secondly, do TNZ really think they
can get away with this one? Thirdly, would the regulator even understand the
paragraph above?