WiMAX Handbook: Building 802.16 Wireless Networks
Describing how WiMAX affects current telecom technologies including Wi-Fi, fiber optics, and VoIP, this book discusses the business and economic implications of this ground-breaking technology.
TABLE OF CONTENTS WiMAX Handbook: Building 802.16 Wireless Networks
Chapter 8: WiMAX VoIP
Telephone companies are threatened because it is infinitely cheaper to beam data (and voice) to a customer than it is to run a copper wire or coax cable to them. In addition, the potential data flow to a subscriber over a WiMAX network is exponentially greater than the 56 Kbps delivered via a telco's copper wire dial-up connection. The emergence of softswitch as a switching alternative to Class 4 and Class 5 switches makes it all the more feasible for WiMAX service providers to offer voice services independent of the telephone company or for subscribers (especially enterprises) to be their own telephone company, effectively bypassing the PSTN entirely.
PSTN Architecture
The PSTN, over which the vast majority of the voice traffic in North America travels, is comprised of three elements: transport, the transportation of conversation from one CO to another; switching, the switching or routing of calls in the PSTN via a telephone switch contained in the CO; and access, the connection between the switch in the CO and the subscriber's telephone or other telecommunications device. Figure 8-1 provides an overview of this architecture.
Figure 8-1: The three components of the PSTN access, switching, and transport and their WiMAX counterparts
As illustrated in Figure 8-1, WiMAX is a form of access to a wider network (PSTN, corporate LAN or WAN, or Internet). The MFJ of 1984 opened transport to competition. The bandwidth glut currently has made transport via IP backbone relatively inexpensive. The use of WiMAX as a backhaul mechanism...
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