Path: csiph.com!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!reader5.news.weretis.net!news.solani.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Richmond Newsgroups: uk.telecom Subject: Re: Virgin Media's Digital Voice system Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2026 15:54:25 +0000 Organization: Frantic Message-ID: <82fr74skpa.fsf@example.com> References: <82v7g2uk0q.fsf@example.com> <10mmss6$27ag8$1@dont-email.me> <10mn6f2$260no$1@dont-email.me> <82qzqossgb.fsf@example.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Info: solani.org; logging-data="147194"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@news.solani.org" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Cancel-Lock: sha1:rFvP8uinNcVaVIgEAMewkuPLyvw= sha1:GMUO0qGc9bKABDZFGQvJFOdUxPM= X-User-ID: eJwFwYEBgDAIA7CXpNBungMI/59gQpepT4gKLhfxvOjJyEpjV2k0Pe5xr/kSBQwhPwEsvh8iuBDt Xref: csiph.com uk.telecom:38904 Theo writes: > Richmond wrote: >> David Wade writes: >> >> >> On 12/02/2026 14:13, Richmond wrote: >> > >> >>> So there it is, we've destroyed the telephone network and handed >> >>> ourselves over to corporations to feed parasitically on us. All >> >>> this was started by Margaret Thatcher. >> >>> >> > >> > I don't believe its "destroyed", in fact I feel its in a much >> > better place than when it was run by the GPO, there were no >> > socketed phones, only GPO approved and owned devices, and long >> > distance calls were at a premium. > > Tech in the 80s (microprocessors) was much advanced from the 70s > (mechanical switching), and tech today is much advanced from the 80s. > It's not really a fair comparison because advancing tech has expanded > network capacity and made the cost of voice calls much, much cheaper > (even if the price has not followed suit). > >> What we are moving toward is not a telephone network, it is the >> internet. The telephone network has been dissolved into just another >> internet service. > > Basically you don't have to worry about long distance call routing any > more, you just get the internet to do it for you. The original IETF > pioneers decided it was easier to build out the network that it was to > work out how to bill for it, and that has more or less held. > >> With genuine competition people will stop paying for calls and use >> some free software. But genuine competition isn't Google Meet or >> Whatsapp, where you have to determine which proprietary software the >> recipient is using before calling. > > Long distance routing might be free, but running servers, endpoints > and support are not free. 'Phone calls' have a usage-based billing > model (eg wholesale call termination is about 0.1p/min for UK > landlines and 0.5-1p/min for mobiles) which covers the recipient > network's costs, with the remainder of the bill going to cover the > costs of the initiating network. > > Google Meet and Whatsapp are cross-subsidised from business > subscriptions or advertisting, and Facetime is cross-subsidised from > hardware sales - and they are notable for offering minimal support. > They're free at the point of use because they're a power play in > keeping you in the Google/Meta/Apple ecosystem so they can harvest > your data or make it undesirable to buy services/hardware from another > vendor. > > 'Phone calls' may have a low cost, but it seems the market is > bifurcating into domestic telecoms, where the cost of running the > network (notably support) is spread across fewer and fewer customers, > and business telecoms which is about high volumes and the customer > doing more of their own support. If you don't want to be gouged it's > up to you to learn how to make the leap to the latter. > > Theo I pay for my infrastructure with my broadband subscription. Other people pay for theirs, that's how the internet works. I don't have to pay a connection fee to connect to a website. I don't pay per minute to download. Those connection fees you quote above are justified by ADSL and Mobile perhaps, but not by VOIP to VOIP. Here, listen to free UDP packets: https://onlineradiobox.com/us/wkct/?cs=us.977todayshits (unfortunate contatenation of todays and hits) Currently I phone people free if they are on Signal, or Google Meet, or Zoom, or Teams, and I pay about 1.5ppm if they don't know what they are on or how it works, and I pay 3ppm for mobile. I can't do any better than that as things stand. No one is going to use Matrix or whatever, they won't understand it.