TMCnet Feature

Perhaps it’s old news now that the “plain old telephone system” (POTS) is kaputz. The agedness and antiquated nature of it is even indicated in its name. But to find out how exactly it died, and where the future of the communications technology world lies, one had to attend the Post POTS Net Neutrality & the Cloud: From POTS to PANS lecture today at the Miami Convention Center during ITEXPO (News - Alert) East 2012.

With speakers including Carl Ford of Crossfire Media and Richard Shockey, chairman of SIP Forum, the discussion geared toward the notion of “the next generation of the Internet,” and how to determine the bottlenecks for building a new model for the future. The changing economics of the communications world make the ideas of cloud migration, supporting access, quality of service, and net neutrality relatively tricky for future users. Ford assured listeners that “net neutrality is not really a smoking gun,” contrary to popular belief.

“We’re at a point now where backbone access has to be discussed,” said Ford. “The Internet is really an open forum, really you can do whatever you want. The problem we face is when people keep trying to find ways to put some rules on it, like the SOPA rules. The biggest issue that we face is the Internet having given the content industry the tools to manage things better - we just don’t do enough to manage it,” he continued.

Shockey discussed the end of POTS and a move toward Public Access Neutral Solutions (PANS). He made a point of noting, “There is zero question that SIP will be the dominant model for the delivery of real time E.164 named services. SIP is posed to dominate the market by 2015.”

“The end of POTS came when the FCC (News - Alert) undertook the Intercarrier Compensation/Universal Service reform…[yet] this is not about the end of the PSTN,” he mentioned. One of his slides pointed out, in more laymen’s terms, that “we are not taking away Grandma’s phone.” Real-time communications is still one-third of industry revenues (approximately $120 billion).

But he made the important point that “Any transition to all IP PTN would require national 10-digit dialing, which would mean that you could keep your number for your entire lifetime.”

 “It’s a policy issue at this particular time. We have to think about this from different aspects,” Shockey continued. “Now we have systems that essentially the consumer himself is responsible for powering the network.”

Shockey said that we are about 85 percent there but “it’s the last 15 percent that’s going to be excruciatingly painful to convert.” No surprise there. The remaining 15 percent, or “last mile,” as Ford put it, are “those places that senators refer to as ‘underserved.’”

One of Ford’s statements made a resounding impact on the audience. He said, “I came from this world of the phone call. The world is all data now. We should always know what the unit of measure is that we’re looking at. We’re moving to PANS because data has become a commodity.”

The right framework for the future of communications technology is one that may never be settled, but progress is powerful, and the next few years may display the changes that will determine what exactly the next generation of the Internet looks like.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO East 2012, taking place Jan. 31-Feb. 3 2012, in Miami, FL. ITEXPO offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. For more information on registering for ITEXPO registration click here.

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Juliana Kenny graduated from the University of Connecticut with a double degree in English and French. After managing a small company for two years, she joined TMC (News - Alert) as a Web Editor for TMCnet. Juliana currently focuses on the call center and CRM industries, but she also writes about cloud telephony and network gear including softswitches.

Edited by Tammy Wolf