[*] Shaw not selling VoIP?

[Bill Reid]

John Lange wrote:
> Its a bit interesting that if you call Shaw and ask "Is your service
> VoIP?" they will adamantly deny it, saying instead that its "Digital
> Phone Service, not VoIP".

VoIP is a far too generic term for describing a service. In my talks I have 
changed to talking about VoI (Voice over the Internet) rather than VoIP. I think 
this is the distinction that Shaw is trying to make. It is interesting that the 
cable modem product sheeet refers to VoIP but does not mention any voice 
protocol (i.e. SIP or H.323).

In reading the DOCSIS doc it is clear that there are all kinds of provisions for 
scheduling voice packets to provide a CBR (constant bit rate) channel. Some of 
the chip specs talk about providing a MGCP or SIP protocol stack in the modem. 
The specs would suggest that it should have been possible for Shaw to run the 
Voice service over the Internet modems with very good results but I suspect they 
decided that from a marketing point of view this was not wise. After installing 
a new separate infrastructure you can not blame them for not wanting to use the 
term VoIP. All the press about VoIP is really about VoI. You would agree that 
Shaw is correct in saying that their service is not VoI.

The terminology is rather confused.

-- Bill