System information

identify its physical location, an emergency call from it will provide no clue as to
where the caller is. VoIP creates similar challenges.
Call monitoring for law enforcement agencies
Law enforcement agencies have always been able to obtain wiretaps on traditional
circuit-switched telephone lines. While regulations are being enacted that are de-
signed to achieve the same end on the network, the technical challenges of deliv-
ering this functionality will probably never be completely solved. People value their
privacy, and the more governments want to stifle it, the more effort will be put
toward maintaining it.
Anti-monopolistic practices
These practices are already being seen in the US, with fines being levied against
network providers who attempt to filter traffic based on content.
When it comes to regulation, Asterisk is both a saint and a devil: a saint because it feeds
the poor, and a devil because it empowers the phrackers and spammers like nothing
ever has. The regulation of open source telephony may in part be determined by how
well the community regulates itself. Concepts such as DUNDi, which incorporate anti-
spam processes, are an excellent start. On the other hand, concepts such as caller ID–
spoofing are ripe with opportunities for abuse.
Quality of service
Due to the best-effort reality of the TCP/IP-based Internet, it is not yet known how
increasing real-time VoIP traffic will affect overall network performance. Currently,
there is so much excess bandwidth in the backbone that best-effort delivery is generally
quite good indeed. Still, it has been proven time and time again that whenever we are
provided with more bandwidth, we figure out a way to use it up. The 1-MB DSL con-
nection undreamt of five years ago is now barely adequate.
Perhaps a corollary of Moore’s Law
†
will apply to network bandwidth. QoS may be-
come moot, due to the network’s ability to deliver adequate performance without any
special processing. Organizations that require higher levels of reliability may elect to
pay a premium for a higher grade of service. Perhaps the era of paying by the minute
for long-distance connections will give way to paying by the millisecond for guaranteed
low latency, or by the percentage point for reduced packet loss. Premium services will
offer the five-nines
‡
reliability the traditional telecom companies have always touted as
their advantage over VoIP.
† Gordon Moore wrote a paper in 1965 that predicted the doubling of transistors on a processor every few years.
‡ This term refers to 99.999%, which is touted as the reliability of traditional telecom networks. Achieving five
nines requires that service interruptions for an entire year total no more than 5 minutes and 15 seconds. Many
people believe that VoIP will need to achieve this level of reliability before it can fully replace the PSTN. Many
other people believe that the PSTN doesn’t even come close to five-nines reliability. This could have been an
excellent term to describe high reliability, but marketing departments abuse it far too frequently.
The Future of Asterisk | 593