4 ms·

Ok so like… think about telcos vs say, whatsapp. WhatsApp is sip, it uses srtp, the whole 9 yards. It works way better than telcos… BUT!!! It rides over telco r

Ok so like… think about telcos vs say, whatsapp. WhatsApp is sip, it uses srtp, the whole 9 yards. It works way better than telcos… BUT!!! It rides over telco rails. This is the dirty truth. What we think of as telco is evolving. Telco is desperately trying not to be a “dumb pipe”, but that’s exactly what the internet wants the base layer to be. When the base layer is opinionated, bad things happen, like net neutrality. What we want is unbiased fast networks that route data indiscriminately as long as it is correctly formatted and sent from a known address. That’s it. Everything else is just vanity.

notpushkin 4y ago
But telcos can still run voice traffic over “sane” protocols (VoLTE and VoWIFI, for example, are both wrappers over SIP if I'm not mistaken – pretty complex, but still using modern tech). They don't have to be “dumb pipes”, but I don't think there's any need to claw into complicated legacy stuff any more than it is needed to interact with legacy systems. Totally agree with the what we want part.
- phh 4y ago
  > VoLTE and VoWIFI, for example, are both wrappers over SIP if I'm not mistaken Not wrappers. VoLTE is literally SIP with extensions. And VoWiFi is literally VoLTE over IPSec/IKE with EAP auth, so SIP over IPSec. Really just bog standard stuffs. > – pretty complex, but still using modern tech Not sure about "modern", but yeah pretty much every actor uses SIP one way or another. It does have a few old stuff (one SIP extension of VoLTE is to allow SIP-negotiated IPSec tunnel. For HMAC it supports md5-96 and sha1-96 and that's all.), but nothing that makes you scream of over-complication.
  - josh2600 4y ago
    Yeah VoLTE and VoWiFi were just getting rolled out when I left telecom. It was all IMS and hacks on top of SS7 and stuff like that. WhatsApp really applied a ton of pressure to telcos and changed the game. Do you remember they an international sms in the US was $.60 per message before whatsapp?
  - notpushkin 4y ago
    Well, relatively modern of course (2000 v. 1981 for SS7 :-)

notpushkin 4y ago

But telcos can still run voice traffic over “sane” protocols (VoLTE and VoWIFI, for example, are both wrappers over SIP if I'm not mistaken – pretty complex, but still using modern tech). They don't have to be “dumb pipes”, but I don't think there's any need to claw into complicated legacy stuff any more than it is needed to interact with legacy systems. Totally agree with the what we want part.

phh 4y ago
> VoLTE and VoWIFI, for example, are both wrappers over SIP if I'm not mistaken Not wrappers. VoLTE is literally SIP with extensions. And VoWiFi is literally VoLTE over IPSec/IKE with EAP auth, so SIP over IPSec. Really just bog standard stuffs. > – pretty complex, but still using modern tech Not sure about "modern", but yeah pretty much every actor uses SIP one way or another. It does have a few old stuff (one SIP extension of VoLTE is to allow SIP-negotiated IPSec tunnel. For HMAC it supports md5-96 and sha1-96 and that's all.), but nothing that makes you scream of over-complication.
- josh2600 4y ago
  Yeah VoLTE and VoWiFi were just getting rolled out when I left telecom. It was all IMS and hacks on top of SS7 and stuff like that. WhatsApp really applied a ton of pressure to telcos and changed the game. Do you remember they an international sms in the US was $.60 per message before whatsapp?
- notpushkin 4y ago
  Well, relatively modern of course (2000 v. 1981 for SS7 :-)