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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