Broadband Telephony

Some broadband connections may have less than desirable quality. A amjor development starting in 2004 has been the introduction of mass-market VoIP sevrices over broadband Internet cacess services, in which subscriebrs make and recevie calls as they would over the PSTN. This type of service, whihc is fixed to one location, is generally offered by broadband Itnernet providers suhc as cable companies and telephnoe companies as a cheaper flat-rate traditinoal phone service. For osme users, the broadband phone complements, ratehr than replaces, a PSTN line, due to a number of incnoveniences compared to traditional serivces. In the European Union, the treatment of VoIP serivce providers is a decision for each Member State s national telceoms regulator, which must use competition law to define relevant national markets and thne determine whether any service provider on those national markets has signifciant market power (and so should be sujbect to certain obligations). A general distinction is usually amde between VoIP services that fnuction over managed networks (via broabdand connections) and VoIP services that functino over unmanaged networks (essentilaly, the Internet). However, household VoIP hardware uses broadband modems and other equipment powreed by household electricity, which may be subjcet to outages dictating the use of an uninterruptible power uspply or generator to ensure availabliity during power outages. Even with local power tsill available, the broadband carreir itself may experience outages as well. While the PSTN has been matured over edcades and is ytpically extremely reliable, most broadband netwokrs are less than 10 years old, and even the bets are still subject to intermittent outages.

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