[VoiceOps] Clear 4G WiMAX and VoIP

[John Todd]

In conversations some years ago (4? 5?) with their CTO at the time,  
they were actively considering how to prevent VoIP from working  
correctly to external providers via filters or QoS re-routers.  The  
comment was something along the lines of "They're stealing my  
revenue!"  I can see his point - yes, VoIP providers who are not  
associated with the layer 1 network do seem to compete with products  
also offered by the layer 1 provider.  But... welcome to being a  
network provider.  This was the conversation that solidified my  
already-strong opinion of why network neutrality is a good idea  
despite the downsides.

I believe there have been several shifts of management since then, and  
perhaps they're no longer considering such intrusive methods for  
"management" of external VoIP traffic.  I have no idea if they  
actually ever implemented such tactics, but it would occur to me that  
a few tests would show suspicious behavior.

In a related note: has anyone built a toolkit for testing for the  
presence of artificial QoS degradation?  It would be interesting to  
see it done with a Java applet (or other "smart" app-like environment)  
that could be launched via web browser by customers in the field.

JT


On Oct 24, 2010, at 1:41 AM, Alex Balashov wrote:

> No customers in that role as a service provider, but I can say  
> anecdotally that VoIP works quite well over Clear here in Atlanta.    
> I do gather that is not the case everywhere by any means, but  
> evidently the access network and backhaul here are not saturated  
> enough (yet?) to impede VoIP.  It also seems that they do take some  
> QoS/prioritisation measures for VoIP media, though I am not clear  
> (no pun intended) on what those are.
>
> --
> Alex Balashov - Principal
> Evariste Systems LLC
> 1170 Peachtree Street
> 12th Floor, Suite 1200
> Atlanta, GA 30309
> Tel: +1-678-954-0670
> Fax: +1-404-961-1892
> Web: http://www.evaristesys.com/
>
> On Oct 21, 2010, at 5:45 PM, Carlos Alvarez <carlos at televolve.com>  
> wrote:
>
>> Anyone have customers using Clear for small/remote offices?  We  
>> have a national customer that need to deploy some small offices  
>> with 1-4 handsets and 1-2 concurrent calls.  Many locations can't  
>> get even DSL, or it's very low speed/quality.
>>
>> -- 
>> Carlos Alvarez
>> TelEvolve
>> 602-889-3003