[Gllug] Data pots and optics

[t.clarke]

Its a shame that BT cannot provide an equivalent service to ADSL via fibre to
the local exchange and then by the normal route (frame relay?) to the ISP.
Our office can only get 512K due to the distance from the exchange  (we must
be right at the end of the wires, since only about 200 yds away the telephone
numbers change from 01474 ..  to 01322 ..

We have fibre into the building to PSTN, but the kilostream circuit still
is borne over copper!

I do not understand why VOIP is such a big thing - apart from the cost saving
aspect, which is surely only a matter of pricing policy. I seem to recall a
guy at BT Martlesham predicting that with the amount of cheap fibre bandwidth
becoming available in the world we would all be able to rent a telephone line
for a fixed cost and phone anywhere for free, because bandwidth would be
ridiculously cheap and the costs of the billing systems too high in comparison
(or something along those lines!).  My limited understanding of current
telephony is that the digitised analogue voice signals are carried in quite
small 'packets' over some sort of time-multiplexed system such that once the
route is established a dedicated amount of bandwidth is allocated to the call
so that the digitised voice arrives at the other end nicely in sync with no
'jitter' or loss and relatively low latency.  This would not seem to be the
case if IP is used to transport the data (bigger packets? - greater latency? -
packet loss and jitter??).  Or am I missing something.  Some enlightenment
from those with greater knowledge would be appreciated.

Tim
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