5G roadblock: labor

Mon Dec 30 21:35:12 UTC 2019

On 12/30/19 4:14 PM, Michael Thomas wrote:
> The latency argument is what interests me. Supposedly 4G's latency and 
> jitter are tough on voip. If that improves there is just no reason for 
> TDM to phones which is a significant development because cell phones are 
> probably the largest deployment of old style PSTN stuff these days as 
> landlines wither and die. I would think that carriers would embrace that 
> since it would be a cost-down, but I'm sure I'm wrong since that would 
> be admit defeat to IP.

VoLTE is already essentially VoIP, including packet switched media, with 
some MAC layer QoS guarantees as I understand it.  Now, maybe those MAC 
layer guarantees essentially amount to a dedicated OFDMA sub-carrier 
during a voice call.  That I cannot speak to as I'm not intimately 
familiar with the LTE/LTE-A air interface.

I can say that plain ol' best-effort LTE data services are generally 
sufficient for VoIP in my experience if you have "good coverage".  That 
means what I'd generally consider "toll-grade" quality in terms of 
latency and, more inmportantly, jitter.  SSH is similarly quite usable 
generally.  If you're on the fringe of a cell or have a cell that's 
overloaded, YMMV.
-- 
Brandon Martin