Open/close

"I’m pretty sure I’ve not captured the whole picture here. I’d be interested to hear reader feedback on what drives networks to be open or closed, or references to academic study on the matter." Martin



Since you like Latin:

In Medium est Virtus

Let's talk about Flexibly open/close Network.

Let's make an example of what could be acceptable closeness and acceptable openess.

I am a Bank, I want to enjoy the new technologies, I have great lines with great speed, why should I go on feeding the Telecoms?

My first concern is : Security.

A Bank is an institution that would never accept a P2P Network.
But the Bank in my opinion is the Typical example of VoIP user.

It has branches all over the Nation and all over the World.
It has a number of employee which is enough to create a huge telephone bill at the end of the month.
In spite of the fact that a Bank typically has a great availability of money it is an institution that has a proportional eagerness to keep it as much as possible or as most of it as possible...

The calls would be mostly IP to IP, very good quality since they have good lines and completely free, if you consider the data lines already paid for other purposes and the availabilty of good hardware.

The eligibility still doesn't make the customer.

The security issue could be solved by building a VPN, Virtual Private Network.

For security reasons a Bank needs a close Network, but in the meantime it must be reachable by the customers.
So it needs a close/open Network.

To be open it must use an open standard codec.

Telecom Italia is open to Swiss Telecom, but requires a "toll" to be paid, a "roaming".

In this case apart from the cost of it (which I do not dicuss) it is right to charge for entering lines which Telecom Italia owns.
The same applies to Swiss Telecom when somebody from Italy calls Switzerland.

But in the case of a VoIP provider, he doesn't own the lines, neither he leases them
The Internet connection is entirely paid by the user.

What the VoIP provider provides is merely a directing of the call.

The closeness is a wrong way to copy the business model of the Telecoms.
You can call it "in" instead of "roaming", you can charge less (but it costs nothing), but at the end of the day, in this case, building a close Network and charging for entering it, is a mere and unfunded claim.