[AusNOG] M2 buy Primus

[Paul Brooks]

On 16/04/2012 3:43 PM, Mark Delany wrote:
>
> Right. Smartphones have largely hidden the PSTN number in an
> addressbook and numerous apps such as Whatsapp and iMessage intervene
> to carry PSTN traffic off-net.
>
> I don't think users really care about transport. All they really want
> is to use a known identifier like a PSTN number to get to an intended
> recipient. Do they care that it's placed via SS7 across some sort of
> PDH network? I think not.
>


Users don't want to really care about transport - but they do have to keep in mind
what transport methods the other end might be able to receive, and be able to select
from the common set. If you've never met them and don't have their
skype/IM/email/picture in your address book - you end up falling back to the PSTN for
both addressing AND the audio characteristics of a standardised transmission path.

If you -or I - want to communicate with my mum by clicking on a facebook picture on a
smartphone or making an end-to-end SIP call, or embedding an audio message in an MMS,
we'll be many decades trying to be heard.

At the end of the day, you have to use a directory lookup method and a transport
method -and both are different beasts  - that is common or translatable for both ends.
Whats convenient for you is only half the picture.
You can use whatever method you can agree on between friends or places once you've
made contact and exchanged capability details - but to make that first realtime voice
contact with an unknown person, the PSTN, with E.164 numbers and any-to-any
connectivity will be the fall-back for many more decades.



> The residual value of the PSTN is your number. All else is mostly
> anacronistic.

That...and the global ubiquity of knowing that the person at the other end has the
required equipment and capability to receive your communication.


(Shades of "What have the Romans ever done for us?")

Paul.