Bandwidth.com operates (in their words) “the world’s largest directly-connected network”. They have PSTN connectivity in over 60 countries, and provide originating and terminating service to carriers large and small across the world. My impression is that Bandwidth is a well-run company, with a strong technical foundation and good people. Despite this, from September 25-29, 2021… Continue Reading
IP Networks
Heaven help us! How bad is Starlink for rural ISPs?
At the Minnesota Telecom Alliance 2021 Convention I gave a presentation about Starlink, and the impact it’s likely to have on rural internet providers. We also took some detours into some of Elon Musk’s other ambitions for the future of the human race. I don’t have a recording of the actual conference presentation, but I… Continue Reading
Starlink: a new competitor for rural ISPs
If you provide internet service in rural areas, there’s a new competitor knocking at the door. Or rather, on the roof. Starlink is a new satellite internet service created by SpaceX, which promises blazing fast speeds and (eventually) worldwide service even in rural areas. What is Starlink? Announced in January 2015, Starlink will be a… Continue Reading
IP Networks for Voice Applications: Best Practices
What term do you use to describe the company you work for? Are you a telephone company, a service provider, a carrier, or a network operator? These days I’m seeing more use of this last term – network operator – in large part because the network is becoming more important than the application (voice). Most… Continue Reading
Why do Edgewater take a different approach to SD-WAN?
I’ve written a couple of articles on SD-WAN over the past few months, and in my research it’s been clear that most SD-WAN solutions are focused on large enterprises trying to replace an expensive MPLS-based WAN – and any benefit for SMB VoIP is almost an afterthought. This is not the case with Edgewater… Continue Reading
How exactly does SD-WAN help VoIP call quality?
My previous article introduced the concept of SD-WAN and explained why this technology could be important for service providers selling hosted PBX services to businesses. In that article I made the claim that this technology can dramatically improve the quality of VoIP calls, even when running over the public internet. I’m not the only one… Continue Reading