Since I've just gotten back into BBS'ing and Fidonet, I thought I'd get some  
  perspectives from folks on analog modems, the PSTN, and  
  dial-up BBS'ing. This seems relevant even if most people seem to be running  
  strictly IP nodes anymore, given the history of Fidonet's now much  
  less relevant zone:net/node structure for minimizing connection costs. Even  
  if  
  that is likely to remain, even if only an historical artifact, it occurs to  
  me  
  that it's something that should be retained even if, as is already  
  happening  
  in  
  a lot of places, copper wires, T1's, and even ISDN and DSL as well, are now  
  being obsoleted. It could be relevent for mesh WiFi networks, for instance.  
    
  The local ILEC, for instance,  no longer advertises their (former?) dial-up  
  Internet and has moved past DSL to fiber, offering symmetric gigabit  
  capacity  
  for less than the price of a T1. This is all fine and dandy, but there  
  doesn't  
  seem to be any straightforward way to do DCE to DCE communications over IP,  
  absent expensive proprietary software, for the most part  on expensive  
  proprietary networking switches and routers. I haven't had occasion to  
  order a  
  voice phone line that ran over fiber yet, but I'm hearing that even with  
  proper  
   QoS, the voice bandwidth is just not there for analog data connections. Any  
  insight there would be welcome. I could be wrong on that.  
    
  There is a 2003 ITU recommendation, V.150.1, otherwise known as V.MOIP, that  
  addresses this, but again  
  there seem to be only costly proprietary products available. There are  
  other,  
  basically half-measures, such as iaxmodem, or various tricks using SIP  
  signaling combined with G.711, RTP, etc. that are limited  
  in bandwidth to about 9600 baud, and less than completely reliable, for fax  
  and  
  possibly data modem connections.  
    
  Yeah, I have an old Total Control chassis loaded with quad V.34 modems, and  
  if  
  T1's are still available here, I could set up a multi-line dial-up system,  
  but  
  I'm thinking some kind of open-source V.150.1 implementation might be worth  
  pursuing, given all the myriad other legacy analog DCE equipment still out  
  there. If the patent issues on a lot of  the other V. stuff.  
    
  Appreciate any comments or direction, and sorry if this is well-trod ground  
  in  
  this echo.  
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
      Greetings, James Digriz  
      email: jbdigriz@bbs.dragonsweb.org  
    
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